In a recent position paper, I provided a succinct overview of the status of the scholarly debate in applied linguistics about the above question as I attempted, at the same time, to flag some of the limitations of the debate in the way that it has been held so far. In this blog post, I would like to offer a snapshot of the key points in the paper, as well as a short reflection of my own personal experience around this very issue.

In the paper, I argued that both sides of the linguistic injustice debate (those who maintain that L1 English speaker/writer status is a source of linguistic injustice in academic publishing, and those who deny such a premise) seem to share a common conceptualization of language. In short, they both regard language, particularly the specialized jargon of academic publishing (in English), as an autonomous construct, detached from its speakers/writers and the socio-economic conditions that they inhabit. Those who hold that linguistic injustice exists in academic publishing in English will argue that L1 English speaking/writing scholars have an edge in publishing because their L1 status brings them closer to the specialized jargon of academic publishing, whereas those in the opposed camp will deny that thesis and, instead, explain that other factors (such as level of expertise, access to resources and academic networks, etc.) play a bigger role than L1 status. Indeed, the latter will add that because of the specialized nature of the jargon of academic publishing in English, this form of the language is something that all scholars need to acquire and be trained/socialized into, and this applies equally to scholars from all L1 backgrounds.

Attempting to move the debate forward from this seeming dead-end, and referring to some of the work that has already been done on this topic (of which there is plenty), I suggested that the notion of intersectionality can be helpful in grounding the socially-situated nature of the jargon of academic publishing, and that this can help us better account for the social and linguistic injustices that derive from it. In that regard, access to the jargon that is required for academic publishing in English is deeply influenced by the stratified position that scholars occupy within their discipline. Importantly, if we keep in mind that the jargon that has highest currency for academic publishing circulates in places that are hard to get for many (think, for example, of the high fees to attend the relevant conferences in one’s field, or the stratospheric prices of academic publications, including journal subscriptions), then we can better understand how the social and contextual factors of a scholar impinge on their access to this key linguistic resource, which in turn affects their capacity to navigate the multiple hierarchies that structure academia today. Note that I write about the jargon that is required for academic publishing as if it was one homogeneous thing, but it would be more accurate to talk about a constellation of practices that end up having an impact one’s writing. However, for reasons of space, I will not go into more detail in these nuances here, even if they are important. In sum, there is linguistic injustice in academic publishing, but perhaps not as the classically conceived opposition between native vs. non-native English writing scholars. It is a kind of injustice fueled the late-capitalist and neoliberal trends that govern a large part of academia today.

Finally, another central argument that I put forward in the article is the need to shift the focus from writers to readers, and to continue scrutinizing the way readers (particularly peer-reviewers and journal editors) construe the diverse uses of English for academic publishing that are employed by authors from diverse backgrounds. Although it has not been possible to establish a cause-effect link between unorthodox uses of written English with a decision to reject the manuscripts that exhibit these features, previous research has shown how the non-discursive characteristics of an author (e.g., their gender or race) can be made relevant in the non-confirming uses of the language in a text. Thus, it seems increasingly important to turn the tables and put more focus on the readers’ position, as the way they read a given text will crucially affect the construction of its authors’ degree of legitimacy and reliability.

These are, in brief, the main arguments that I developed in the article I referred to at the start of the entry. Summarizing them now, I cannot help but reflect on the way in which my own trajectory as a scholar has shaped my thinking about this topic. Coming from a non-English speaking background, the notion of linguistic injustice in academic publishing for English-medium journals has always felt intuitively very palpable to me; but I can also sense that as experience keeps accumulating, the feeling of insecurity in my writing that I felt intensely as a graduate student and early post-PhD has decreased over time. In addition, and importantly, during my career I have been lucky enough to work in very different institutional contexts before settling in my current position in Stockholm, Sweden: from Barcelona, Spain, to San Diego, the US, Oxford, the UK, Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia, and Jyväskylä, Finland. In all these places, I have experienced first-hand how it is to work in environments with (very) different degrees of resources, side-by-side to colleagues that have played a crucial role in my socialization into an academic and professional ethos. Without a doubt, all these experiences have influenced my publication practices and track record. But let me clarify: this is not to be read as an illustration of the argument against the existence of linguistic injustice in academic publishing. Rather, I would argue that my trajectory can be read as a case in which the multilayered socialization path of a scholar, including their chances of getting published internationally, is crucially determined by their access to resources of all kinds, both linguistic and extra-linguistic ones.

My trajectory, I am sure, is not unique to me. In the context of rampant precarity in academia, with a dearth of permanent positions in almost every higher education system out there, (international) mobility and temporality are defining factors for a great number of scholars. So, the multiple inequalities that structure academia today are increasingly apparent to many of us, and as a result, it becomes more and more urgent that we think of alternative ways that help ease out (if not flatten entirely) the tensions emerging from the hierarchical structures in our fields, including the structures around academic publishing in English.

I would be very interested in hearing other people’s take on this issue; how have you experienced linguistic injustice in academic publishing in English, how have you dealt with this injustice? It would be great to hear from scholars outside applied linguistics/sociolinguistics, which are my areas of expertise, areas in which the arguments that I have rehearsed here are relatively well known. There is potential (and need) to expand the conversation about linguistic injustice in academic publishing in English, and to include many more actors than the ones that normally engage in linguistic (in)justice debates to find out how injustice in publishing is experienced, managed, and challenged (or sustained) across different areas of knowledge.

Josep Soler Associate Professor / Universitetslektor

Department of English (room E806)
Stockholm University
SE-106 91 Stockholm

Phone: +46 (0)8 16 35 93
E-mail: josep.soler@english.su.se