English as a Scientific and Research Language

Ramón Plo Alastrué, Carmen Pérez-Llantada, Ramón Plo Alastrué, Carmen Pérez-Llantada

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781501501111
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Linguistica

This volume examines the role of English in academic and research settings in Europe and provides recommendations on the challenges posed by the dominance of English over national languages as languages of science and research dissemination; the need for language support for academics that need to disseminate their research in English; and the effect of past and present language policies.

Part I: The socio-cultural scenario

Ramón Plo Alastrué

Debates and discourses on English as an academic and research language

1 Introduction

Over the past decades, the advancement of English as the main vehicle for the exchange, dissemination and publication of scientific knowledge on a global scale has been a major focus of scholarly attention. Debates and discourses on English as the predominant international language of science have provoked lively scholarly discussion and comprehensive theorization. The issues tackled are varied, ranging from Englishization as a dimension of globalization (Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas 1993; Graddol 1997; Swales 1990, 1997), linguistic imperialism (Phillipson 1992) and English monolingualism (Ammon 2001; Hamel 2007) to the geopolitics of academic writing (Canagarajah 2002; Lillis and Curry 2010), to cite but a relevant few.

In the European context, the advancement of English has been a widespread phenomenon both in research and academic (higher education) institutions. The communication dynamics within research institutions has been notably influenced by globalization processes and the socioeconomic interests of many countries. The main target is to increase international cooperation and development. As the OECD (2009) Higher Education to 2030 report explains, these shifting research trends account for global socioeconomic development interests in gaining international visibility, reputation and prestige (see also UNESCO 2010; OECD 2012). In addition, scholarly debate has also addressed issues related to national-level research policies on research assessment. These policies have promoted English-medium publications for scientific exchange, dissemination and publication purposes to the detriment of other languages of science.

The shift towards English-only communication in academic settings has been motivated, among other reasons, by the recent internationalization policies adopted in European higher education institutions. Broadly speaking, these policies have sought to increase staff and student mobility, institutional visibility and international recognition. Debates on the role and function of English in academic and higher education contexts maintain that English stands as the lingua franca for communicating with speakers of languages other than English (see, e.g., Seidlhofer 2005; Mauranen 2012). What thus seems clear is that socioeconomic trends along with research and internationalization policies mirror broader sociological phenomena resulting from the processes of globalization and increased transcultural flows (Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas 1993; Pennycook 2007). The role of English in academic and research contexts is primarily instrumental – as House (2003) puts it, English is a shared language of communication for people with different linguacultural backgrounds (see also Seidlhofer 2003).

Debates on current language policy and practice also give strong support to the idea that English is the premier language catering to the specific communicative needs of the international academic and research community. It is interesting to note that the geopolitical and language policy debates mentioned above have mainly been built upon sets of analytical binaries: global vs. local dynamics, inner vs. outer/expanding circles, core vs. periphery scholars, native English speakers vs. non-native English speakers, Anglophone vs. non-Anglophone (Kachru 2009; Flowerdew 2009; Englander and Uzuner-Smith 2013; Kuteeva and Mauranen 2014). Debates and discourses on the role and functions of English as the language of science have likewise revolved around binaries such as big language vs. small languages, English as a privileged language vs. minority languages, and standard English vs. academic Englishes (Mauranen, Pérez-Llantada, and Swales 2010). The rationale underlying this volume is an attempt to explore the tensions posed by these analytical binaries in a comparative manner.

Within the English in Europe: Opportunity or threat? project1, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and running from January 2012 to October 2014, it was deemed necessary to gain comparative insights across different European locations as regards the lingua franca role that English has assumed in different domains, namely, business, higher education, research and tourism. As part of this project, the second of a series of five consecutive international conferences was held in Zaragoza (Spain). Entitled “English as a Scientific and Research Language”, this conference sought to discuss the role and status of English in academic and research settings with specialists in different fields. Topics included controversial issues such as attitudes and language policies towards the advancement of English and its hegemony versus minority national languages, the “publish in English or perish” dilemma and the current dominance of English as a lingua franca and its influence on the process of academic enculturation. Comparative views across different domains and geographic locations in Europe – covering Northern, Central, Eastern and Southern European countries – clearly pointed to a predominant role for English. Concurrently, these views brought to the surface the complexities underpinning the linguistic and sociocultural idiosyncrasies of each local context.

Drawing on a selection of papers presented in the conference, the common goal of the chapters included in this volume is to identify both shared and divergent trends and challenges and contextualize scientific English usage across the local specificities of various geographic locations in Europe. The volume seeks to identify current trends in language use – as well as the tensions originated – and to invite reflection on their possible influence in the domain of global academia. To explore this area, we propose three different scenarios – (i) the “socio-cultural”, (ii) the “discourse community” and (iii) the “language policy/language planning” scenario – in which English supports the communication exchanges and social interactions taking place in academic and research settings. The aim of this volume is to examine how multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks and (quantitative and qualitative) analytical methods are applied to gain a better understanding of the role of English in the European context.

The contributions in Part I, devoted to the “socio-cultural” scenario, examine how the use of English for research communication involves culture-specific stances and different cultural approaches to English-medium scientific communication (i.e., for research publication purposes and aiming at a highly-specialized audience) and science communication (i.e., for disseminating scientific knowledge to a non-specialized audience). The following chapters in this first section raise a number of issues related to the effects of the prevailing Anglophone academic norms vs. the attested culture-specific rhetorical traits in L2 academic English discourse:

Karen Bennett (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal): Towards an epistemological monoculture: Mechanisms of epistemicide in European research publication

Ruth Breeze (Universidad de Navarra, Spain): Citing outside the community? An investigation of the language of bibliography in top journals

Claus Gnutzmann, Jenny Jakisch, and Frank Rabe (Technische Universität Braun-schweig, Germany): Resources for publishing in English: Strategies, peers and techniques

Marina Bondi (Universitá degli Study di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy): Language policy in web-mediated scientific knowledge dissemination: A case study of risk communication across genres and languages

Part II, the “discourse community” scenario, investigates the effects of English-only research publishing practices across local communities of European researchers with different L1 backgrounds. This part specifically addresses the linguistic challenges faced by non-Anglophone scientists and researchers in different geographic locations in Europe who use English as the medium of research construction, publication and dissemination. The contributions provide both textual (linguistic) and contextual analyses of English-medium research communication. Cross-cultural differences on the one hand and linguistic inequities on the other hand are discussed:

Renata Povolná (Masarykova univerzita, Brno, Czech Republic): On cross-cultural variation in the use of some text-organizing devices in research articles

Sonia Oliver (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain): Spanish authors dealing with hedging or the challenges of scholarly publication in English L2

Josef Schmied (Technische Universität Chemnitz, Germany): Academic writing in English in comparison: Degree adverbs, connecting adverbials and contrastive/concessive markers in the ChemCorpus and comparable data-bases

Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova (Masarykova univerzita, Brno, Czech Republic): Cross-cultural variation in citation practices: A comparative analysis of citations in Czech English-medium and international English-medium linguistics journals

Ana Bocanegra-Valle (Universidad de Cádiz, Spain): Peer reviewers’ recommendations for language improvement in research writing

Part III of the volume examines the “language policy/language planning” scenario and offers insightful perspectives on academics’ perceptions and attitudes to English as a shared language, to their own national languages and to other foreign languages that may also act as lingua francas. The effects and the impact of language policies are examined with a view to identifying shifting attitudes and perceptions towards English as a shared language for international research communication on the part of non-Anglophone researchers and academics. Last but not least, the contributions listed below offer several suggestions for instructional intervention and pedagogical approaches to the teaching and learning of languages for academic and research purposes:

Jennifer Schluer (Universität Kassel, Germany): English as a lingua franca in linguistics? A case study of German linguists’ language use in publications

Maria Kuteeva (Stockholms universitet, Sweden): Academic English as “nobody’s land”: The research and publication practices of Swedish academics

Laura-Mihaela Muresan and Mariana Nicolae (Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti, Romania): Addressing the challenge of publishing internationally in a non-Anglophone academic context: Romania – a case in point

Branka Drljača Margić and Tea Žeželić (Sveučilište u Rijeci, Croatia): The implementation of English-medium instruction on Croatian higher education: Attitudes, expectations and concerns

Joanna Lewińska (Wszechnica Polska. Warsaw, Poland): Teaching English as a lingua franca in a multilingual environment at the academic level

It is hoped that the whole picture provided by these three interdependent, and at the same time convergent, scenarios helps the reader to obtain a clearer vision of the current position of English in Europe, reflects its complexity and the particularities of the different areas, identifies forthcoming challenges and becomes, in turn, the source of further debates.

We woul...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Language and Social Life
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Series preface
• List of contributors
• Part I: The socio-cultural scenario
• Part II: The discourse community scenario
• Part III: The language policy scenario.: English as a lingua franca in linguistics?
• Endnotes
• Index