Opening up research on English-medium instruction: New interdisciplinary perspectives

The introductory paper to this special issue makes a call for interdisciplinarity in English as a medium of instruction (EMI) on the grounds that EMI can only be properly studied and its challenges addressed by understanding its entanglement with a wider political, economic and social restructuring of higher education. The paper first offers a taxonomy of interdisciplinarity, drawing a distinction between interdisciplinarity within and beyond applied linguistics, the former of which has been most common within EMI to date. Following a synopsis of each of the five contributions, we evaluate the extent to which the issue has achieved its objectives. While the special issue advocates strongly for interdisciplinarity, it also acknowledges the challenges of engaging in genuine interdisciplinary scholarship and points to the structures that work to uphold disciplinary boundaries. We conclude by offering some ways forward for interdisciplinarity in EMI, arguing particularly for interdisciplinarity that extends beyond applied linguistics.