Non-specialist linguists in the United Kingdom in the context of the Englishisation of European higher education

This paper explores why, in the context of high tuition fees and of the expansion of English as both the language of international trade and more specifically the language of European higher education, students at British universities still wish to acquire language skills alongside a quite different specialist discipline. The paper traces the development of non-specialist language provision in UK universities, including at the Open University, over the past two decades, seeking to identify how many students are opting for non-compulsory language courses, and who they are