O ulozi akademske zajednice u obrazovanju jezičkog kadra specijaliziranog za oblast evropskih integracija / On the Role of Academia in Educating Language Experts Specialised in European Integration

Abstract

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has been involved in the process of European integration for many years with the goal of obtaining full EU membership. This paper seeks to answer whether the process of European integration has resulted in launching specialised EU study programmes in translation, interpretation, terminology, language&law at the university level in BiH. For the purpose of this paper, curricula of eight English Departments (academic year 2021/2022) were examined: Sarajevo, Mostar (Univerzitet “Džemal Bijedić”/”Sveučilište u Mostaru”), Tuzla, Zenica, Bihać, Banja Luka, Istočno Novo Sarajevo. Private universities were disregarded. The analysis findings revealed that the departments mentioned do not offer any specialised programmes of this kind, as well as that, becoming a “lawyer-linguist” and/or a “terminologist” is not possible via the regular education system. It has been concluded that BiH universities should start promoting the importance of such study programmes as soon as possible and that academia should start opening up towards the creation of new interdisciplinary study programmes thus strengthening the language capacity of individuals willing to specialise in this field, as well as the attractiveness of higher education in BiH.