this work-in-progress, we use a spatial perspective to explore ‘English’ in higher education internationalisation. Being geographically mobile and ‘international’ has become important for students and academics in higher education wherein English as a lingua franca has gained importance. Outside the Anglo-Saxon countries, offering English Medium Instruction (EMI) is often seen as a crucial indicator of internationalisation from an institutional perspective. This is to the
extent where ‘international programmes’ come to mean programmes taught in English. Denmark is a case in point. We use Danish higher education as a case to explore the multiple usages of English amongst so-called native and non-native speakers. Linguistic diversity is not just about speaking multiple languages, but about speaking the ostensibly same language in different ways, in different
‘places’, and with different societal outcomes. The paper shows that the notion of English as lingua franca in higher education creates hierarchies of people and disciplines.