Institutional academic English in the European context: a web-as-corpus approach to comparing native and non-native language

In this contribution we present a corpus-based analysis of institutional English as used in the Italian academic context. In order to make this multi-faceted object of study more manageable and focused, the investigation is limited to academic websites. These are viewed as particularly relevant inasmuch as they provide a powerful means of making contents available to a vast audience, including, crucially, international students. Producing appropriate and effective web texts of an institutional nature in English is a must for institutions in non-English speaking countries in order to favour EU-wide student mobility and to attract prospective students from outside the EHEA. From a descriptive / theoretical point of view, studies of academic discourse conducted so far have mainly focused on disciplinary academic English, and especially on scientific writing. Institutional English produced within academia has received much less attention, with the exception of a few landmark publications (notably Fairclough 1993 and Biber 2006). Hence the relevance of the present investigation.