RESPONSES TO THE INTERNATIONALISATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN LANGUAGE POLICIES OF ESTONIA AND LATVIA.

This paper analyses language policies in higher education in Estonia and Latvia. Both countries are currently in search for a balance between national and international in the sphere of higher education. Higher education in Estonia and Latvia mainly functions in the official languages of the countries, Estonian and Latvian. Yet, the international nature of tertiary education has brought these languages into contact with others, mostly English and Russian. The paper seeks to find out how the relationship of internationalisation and language is construed in state-level policy documents comparatively in Estonia and Latvia. The results of the analysis show that the issues of language are more thoroughly covered in Estonian policy documents than Latvian policy documents. However, in both countries internationalisation is mostly driven by the need to attract foreign students in order to fill the domestic demographic gap. Thus, both Estonia and Latvia connect internationalisation mostly to foreign-medium instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]