Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T23:10:57.223Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 2 - The role of English in the research world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2012

John M. Swales
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Get access

Summary

This chapter focuses on the linguistic variable in research activities, along with attendant considerations such as the provenance of research publications and the status of native and non-native speakers of English, today's premier research language. As it has turned out, these have become increasingly complex issues. Part of the reason for this derives from the trends outlined in Chapter 1, but another part comes from the difficulty in reading the available research on these topics. Whereas the number of publications devoted to the linguistic variable (and its consequences) has rapidly expanded over the last decade, the studies reflect the epistemologies and methodologies of many different disciplines and so are hard to consolidate in a fully coherent manner. Finally, the issue of the role of English in research is politically and ideologically contested (for fully understandable reasons), and this further complicates the picture. This chapter then represents my “best shot” at mapping difficult terrain.

The Language of Journals

In Chapter 6 of Genre Analysis, I produced some quantitative data to argue against an overwhelming Anglophone supremacy in research articles, and concluded:

While there is no doubt that English has become the world's predominant language of research and scholarship, the extent of that predominance may have been exaggerated. High overall percentages can indeed be extracted from the major US-located international data bases, but these data bases are themselves pre-disposed to English language sources.

(1990: 99)
Type
Chapter
Information
Research Genres
Explorations and Applications
, pp. 33 - 59
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×