What is it about?
Academic journals are one of the most important ways in which researchers inform people around the world about their findings and insights. Currently almost all of the most highly regarded journals are published in English. As the majority of academic researchers are not first language speakers of English this can present a problem for them. In this research study the opinions and insights of senior Japanese academics working at two universities ranked in the top 50 worldwide were sought. They were asked whether the use of English impacted on their ability to disseminate their research widely.
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Why is it important?
If very experienced academics find writing up their research in English burdensome this might impact on their willingness to publish. In addition, it is widely accepted that these top journals are often fairly inflexible about the type of English they are prepared to accept. It is often not sufficient for the English employed in articles to be accessible and fluent; it needs to sound as if it were written by an English native speaker. This requirement places an unnecessary burden on English second language academics.
Perspectives
The interviewees in this research project believe that English played a very important role as an academic lingua franca allowing academics around the world access to world-class research. However, they believe that the kind of English deemed acceptable by these publications requires greater scrutiny. It was also felt that where the journals charge authors to publish their research and in doing so make a great deal of money, the journals should assist by providing free language editing and proofreading services. In addition, it was suggested that journals revisit the kind of English that they find acceptable, and place greatest emphasis on the language being understandable and fluent. The authors suggest that institutions around the world could offer researchers more help in-house to academics writing articles for publication.
Pat Strauss
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: “Most good papers are published in English”, Journal of English for Research Publication Purposes, July 2023, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/jerpp.22009.str.
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