This article examines how dominant discourses disseminated through quality assurance processes in Greek Higher Education (re)define academic work and language use in a globalised HE field. Drawing on Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse, we approach government-led external evaluations of university departments as official policy texts that encode the evaluative criteria of quality institutions and valorise specific forms of knowledge and conduct. Our analysis of empirical material derived from selected HE departments illustrates that performance measurement systems interlink English as a default language with mobility and research activity in a unified discourse of quality constructing a selective understanding of how Higher Education Institutions and academics are expected to attain international visibility.