A qualitative analysis of teachers´ reasons for translanguaging

English Medium Instruction (EMI) is spreading at a rapid pace in universities the world over. At a time when internationalisation has become a key objective in higher education, EMI programmes are regarded as a pillar of the measures implemented to achieve it. The present study was conducted at the University of (anonymous), an institution that has two official languages (Basque and Spanish), which is why EMI entails the use of English as L3. This linguistic milieu makes it an ideal multilingual context to analyse translanguaging. Translanguaging has become a very relevant and, to a certain extent, controversial issue, especially in those contexts where the language teaching tradition ​​encourages the exclusion of the L1 from the foreign language classroom, as is the case at the UPV/EHU. Our objective is to identify teachers´ reasons or motives to translanguage both in the EMI and the BMI (Basque Medium Instruction). We identified six objectives for these teachers to translanguage: (i) Providing a translation; (ii) The influence of Spanish on Basque: the use of Spanish expressions; (iii) Translanguaging to attract students´ attention; (iv) Translanguaging as a criticism; (v) Linguistic cleanliness and purism; (vi) Translanguaging in relation to the local culture and context.