Academic publishing and the myth of linguistic injustice

Hyland, Ken (2016) Academic publishing and the myth of linguistic injustice. Journal of Second Language Writing, 31. pp. 58-69. ISSN 1060-3743

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Abstract

Academic publication now dominates the lives of academics across the globe who must increasingly submit their research for publication in high profile English language journals to move up the career ladder. The dominance of English in academic publishing, however, has raised questions of communicative inequality and the possible 'linguistic injustice' against an author's mother tongue. Native English speakers are thought to have an advantage as they acquire the language naturalistically while second language users must invest more time, effort and money into formally learning it and may experience greater difficulties when writing in English. Attitude surveys reveal that English as an Additional Language authors often believe that editors and referees are prejudiced against them for any non-standard language. In this paper, I critically review the evidence for linguistic injustice through a survey of the literature and interviews with scholars working in Hong Kong. I argue that framing publication problems as a crude Native vs non-Native polarization not only draws on an outmoded respect for 'Native speaker' competence but serves to demoralizes EAL writers and marginalize the difficulties experienced by novice L1 English academics. The paper, then, is a call for a more inclusive and balanced view of academic publishing.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: academic publishing,eal writers,linguistic injustice,peer review
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 30 Jan 2018 16:30
Last Modified: 21 Oct 2022 17:32
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/66138
DOI: 10.1016/j.jslw.2016.01.005

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