Seeking acceptance in an English-only research world

Belcher, Diane

doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2006.12.001

Cited by 270 publications

(160 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

151

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…As English has become the dominant language of global scholarly publishing, concomitant pressure has been mounting for multilingual scholars to publish in English, particularly in English-medium journals (Belcher, 2007;Curry & Lillis, 2004;Flowerdew, 2000). In many contexts outside of Anglophone 'centre' locations (Wallerstein, 1991), English-medium publishing has come to be highly valued by institutional reward systems, 0889-4906/$-see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic research networks: Accessing resources for English-medium publishing

Curry¹,

Lillis²

2010

English for Specific Purposes

107

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Multilingual scholars located outside of Anglophone contexts face growing pressure to publish in English. Evidence from a longitudinal "text-ethnographic" study exploring how 50 psychology and education scholars in southern and central Europe are responding to such pressure indicates that individual linguistic and rhetorical competence alone are usually insufficient for securing publication in English-medium journals. Rather, scholars' accounts demonstrate that participation in academic research networks functions as a key resource for publishing. This article examines the importance of networks and tracks how scholars gain access to and participate in them. We present 'network histories' that map out the network participation of four scholars, foregrounding several core dimensions: local and transnational, formal and informal, strong and weak, durable and temporary. Our findings suggest that strong, local, durable networks are crucial to enabling scholars' participation in transnational networks, which support their publishing in both English and local languages. Findings contribute directly to our understandings about academic publishing in a global context and to broader debates about the efficacy of initiatives for increasing research collaboration such as those sponsored by the EU Framework Programmes. We conclude by briefly considering implications for supporting multilingual scholars' publication and programmes aimed at increasing collaboration.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic research networks: Accessing resources for English-medium publishing

Curry¹,

Lillis²

2010

English for Specific Purposes

107

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In this regard, over 60% of dialysis patients have adynamic bone disease (8). Dialysis calcium concentration ([calcium]) also contributes to calcium balance in hemodialysis patients (9,10). The choice of dialysate calcium concentration ([calcium]) will determine calcium balance during hemodialysis and, eventually, vascular calcification (11,12).…”

Section: Genre Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Real or perceived, the advantage enjoyed by researchers who are native English speakers (NESs) is not always considered by NNES authors to be an unfair one [8]. While some researchers state that English usage and style are not the reasons given by journals for rejecting submissions [9], others say just the opposite (Weller, 2001, cited in [10,11]). Two of the primary obstacles that make the goal of publishing in Anglophone academic journals such a challenging one for NNES academics are time [12] and cost [2,12,13], both of which are at least partially attributable to linguistic background.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

English or Englishes in Global Academia: A Text-Historical Take on Genre Analysis

Shaw

2016

Publications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:The challenge of publishing internationally for non-native English speakers (NNESs) is substantial, although there are conflicting accounts as to how NNES-authored texts fare in English-medium journals and the nature of the criticism levied at these texts. Collaborators from a wide variety of backgrounds and skill sets may contribute to these texts, and the aspects they focus on differ based on their profile. One of these aspects, rhetorical appropriateness, is of interest to the study of NNES writing because of difficulties authors have in adapting to the discourse-level features of English-medium academic texts. This article presents a multi-year research project exploring the rhetorical characteristics of writing produced by 10 NNES academics seeking to publish in international biomedical journals. Using a text-historical approach, the study traces the arc of 10 different research articles across multiple drafts, analyzing the processes and agents behind these drafts and the feedback received from target journals. Focusing on rhetorically significant changes made across different drafts and comments concerning linguistic issues, this paper seeks to further the understanding of English as a lingua franca within written discourse in the field of biomedicine. One text history is presented to exemplify the methods.

show abstract

“…For example, Belcher (2007) highlighted the idea that authorial perseverance in the reviewing and submitting of a paper may end up in publication when there are constructive critical comments from evaluators (p. 1). These comments, often critical and even biting, are hard to take, making authors give up after the first rejection of their paper, independent of language proficiency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relevance of English in Colombian Scientific Research Awareness

Osorio¹,

Arellano²

2017

ELT

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Even though the majority of Colombian professors are also involved in research, they have limitations in their English language skills that separate them from the rest of the scientific society. Evidently, these limitations have become an obstacle in the awareness of professors' modest, but no less important, research work. In order to carry out this study, we selected three remarkable higher education institutions of Pereira, Risaralda in Colombia. We used collected data from 2012 to 2015. A quantitative analysis of the number of articles in English in comparison to Spanish was done. Even though there has been an increasing number of articles in English, they are still limited. This research suggests an approach to evaluate the hypothesis raised by the authors that states that the low English-language proficiency of the scientists is affecting the visibility of Colombian and, overall, Latin American science. We propose to increase the visibility of Colombian science by publishing research papers in both languages, Spanish and in English. Finally, Latin American English writing skills require attention from their own governments to increase the awareness and contribution of these countries in a globalized world.

show abstract

Seeking acceptance in an English-only research world

Cited by 270 publications

References 22 publications

Academic research networks: Accessing resources for English-medium publishing

Academic research networks: Accessing resources for English-medium publishing

English or Englishes in Global Academia: A Text-Historical Take on Genre Analysis

The Relevance of English in Colombian Scientific Research Awareness

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About