The progressive spread of English as the main language of international scientific communication has been interpreted in many different ways by several scholars. The paper presents a brief review of the scientific debate on such topics, focusing on the main stereotypes which have been created in order to provide explanations for the development of English as the language of science, and on the perception of non-Anglophone scholars on the reasons of the predominance of English in scientific literature and their disadvantages with respect to native speakers.
Frequently used stereotypes on English as the language of science are analyzed and discussed in reference to the motivations asserted by linguists and non-linguists. A double ideological evidence can be registered: (1) arguments essentially consist in a-posteriori justifications, (2) English — far away from representing a free choice for non-native scholars — is perceived as the repository of the linguistic power that is desired and worshipped.
The overview closes with the results of a pilot investigation on the languages of scientific publications, conducted on a sample of Italian scholars belonging to various scientific fields.
Busch, Carly A., Erika M. Nadile, Tasneem F. Mohammed, Logan E. Gin, Sara E. Brownell & Katelyn M. Cooper
2024. The scientific rules, roles, and values that life sciences doctoral students want to see upheld by undergraduate researchers. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 61:10 ► pp. 2405 ff.
Chasan, Muchammad Ikfil, Triyono Rakhmadi & Abdul Basit
2023. Bibliometric Analysis of The Mawlid Celebration. Proceeding of Saizu International Conference on Transdisciplinary Religious Studies► pp. 59 ff.
Nolde-Lopez, B, J Bundus, H Arenas-Castro, D Román, S Chowdhury, T Amano, V Berdejo-Espinola & S M Wadgymar
2023. Language Barriers in Organismal Biology: What Can Journals Do Better?. Integrative Organismal Biology 5:1
Hyland, Ken & Feng (Kevin) Jiang
2022. Bundles in advanced EAL authors’ articles: How do they compare with world Englishes practices?. World Englishes 41:4 ► pp. 554 ff.
Khelifa, Rassim, Hayat Mahdjoub, Affef Baaloudj, Sara Chaib & Bethann Garramon Merkle
2022. Language of citation and publishing performance of graduate students in French-speaking countries with different economic and linguistic advantages. FACETS 7 ► pp. 71 ff.
Lehman, Iga Maria & Tomasz Paweł Krzeszowski
2022. Writing Differently about Scholarly Issues: Defending Our Voices and Inviting the Reader. Discourses on Culture 18:1 ► pp. 13 ff.
Melo-Pfeifer, Sílvia
2021. La recherche plurilingue en didactique des langues : co‐construction des actions et des savoirs dans un forum de discussion plurilingue. Retombées épistémologiques. Alterstice 2:1 ► pp. 29 ff.
Ramírez-Castañeda, Valeria & Emmanuel Manalo
2020. Disadvantages in preparing and publishing scientific papers caused by the dominance of the English language in science: The case of Colombian researchers in biological sciences. PLOS ONE 15:9 ► pp. e0238372 ff.
Haller, Max
2019. A Global Scientific Community? Universalism Versus National Parochialism in Patterns of International Communication in Sociology*. International Journal of Sociology 49:5-6 ► pp. 342 ff.
Horner, Bruce
2017. Writing Language: Composition, the Academy, and Work. Humanities 6:2 ► pp. 11 ff.
Hyland, Ken
2016. Academic publishing and the myth of linguistic injustice. Journal of Second Language Writing 31 ► pp. 58 ff.
Hyland, Ken
2019. Participation in Publishing: The Demoralizing Discourse of Disadvantage. In Novice Writers and Scholarly Publication, ► pp. 13 ff.
Liddicoat, Anthony J.
2016. Multilingualism research in Anglophone contexts as a discursive construction of multilingual practice. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 11:1 ► pp. 9 ff.
Englander, Karen
2014. Gatekeepers, Guardians and Allies. In Writing and Publishing Science Research Papers in English [SpringerBriefs in Education, ], ► pp. 83 ff.
Calaresu, Emilia
2011. The declining status of Italian as a language of scientific communication and the issue of diglossia in scientific communities. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2011:210
Clyne, Michael & Farzad Sharifian
2008. English as an international language. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 31:3 ► pp. 28.1 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 december 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.
