In pragmatics, as in all sciences, English constitutes international publications’ lingua franca. How this affects pragmatics research is explored using a meta-study of 100 current articles with transcripts of audio- or video-taped social interaction, issued in the Journal of Pragmatics (JoP). There is a big diversity in the level to which non-English data is obtainable, and there are nearly as many diverse transcript kinds of non-English data as there exist articles. A good deal of the real-life multiplicity of non-English language use is dropped in the data displays, and the original is not enough approachable to enable autonomous analysis, as it would be if the data were in English. Only slight reflection of the choices are presented. The article concludes that there is a need to enhance scientific precision, availability of non-English data, readability and viability.