When Does Knowledge Have a National Language? Language Policy-Making for Science and Technology

Quantifying the Burden of Writing Research Articles in a Second Language

“…The world of scientific publication is dominated by the English language (Ammon, 1998(Ammon, , 2006Hamel, 2007;Tsunoda, 1983). Research over the last three decades has shown a continual increase in the percentage of scientific publications in English from 66% in the 1980s (St. John, 1987) to 89% or 90% at the end of the 20th century (Ammon, 1998;Martel, 2001). The situation is such that Hamel (2007) has made the claim that there is a rapid trend toward English monoculturalism in scientific publication.…”

Commitments to Academic Biliteracy

“…This restriction was imposed by the Québec Charter of the French Language (passed in 1977 and amended several times since) and upheld by the federal Supreme Court of Canada in response to the perceived threat to the maintenance of French in Québec caused by the inclination of allophone immigrants, in rising numbers, and some francophones to enroll their children in English schools rather than French schools (Plourde, 2000). Interestingly, although the languages of schooling, the workplace, and public signage have occasioned relentless legislative and political battles, the languages of research and postsecondary education have been of less concern (unlike in France; see Martel, 2001;Truchot, 2001). In fact provincial and federal language laws in Québec do not regulate access to postsecondary education or the use of language for scholarly publications and specialized colloquia, opening windows of opportunity for francophones and allophones to complete their postsecondary education in English.…”

“…Katia's trajectory in particular points to the importance of francophone academic spaces such as institutions of higher learning and scholarly conferences in her biliterate development. These spaces are maintained in part through the action of the Québec government (Godin & Vallières, 1995;Martel, 2001). In fact, the preservation of clearly bounded unilingual-French institutional spaces is a languageplanning strategy that has contributed to the revival of French not only in the French-majority province of Québec but also in Englishmajority provinces in the rest of Canada (Heller, 2003).…”