SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF ACADEMIC WRITING

1. SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF ACADEMIC WRITING THE ROLE OF ENGLISH IN THE RESEARCH WORLD (SWALES 2004) The scenario of the shift of the research language among Non Anglophone Researchers (NARs) Recently many NARs shifted their language of publication into English in spite of their own languages. Instances: Lippert (1978) reported that a total of 33 journals from health and life sciences which as early as 1977 had changed their journal titles and editorial language into English from German language.

2. - Gunnarrsson (1998) added that in 1994, Swedish medicals scientists present their results not in Swedish language in their local journal but in English in international medical journal. - the result of the languages used in doctoral dissertations in Finland as reported by Wilson (2002) found that there was a rapid acceleration in the usage of English as research language among Finnish researchers since 1940s. - Berg, Hult & King (2001) in their survey reported that in the late 1980s biology and chemistry theses in Stockholm were already in English even though it was not fully applied in other fields.

3. Many non native speakers’ academic writings such as journals and dissertations nowadays were slowly headed from locally oriented to globally oriented as due to “Englishization” of the academic world. • Even though, local/national languages still be using in academic writing (journals, articles, dissertations) today by NARs especially in highlighting any issues within their countries’ boundary or only local issues which do not concern others much-therefore the variability of language still exist in today’s academic world.

4. English as language of publication • The “Englishization” of academic world had impacted the status of non Anglophone academic writings into unrecognisable masterpieces-e.g: Dutch publications case (p.37) • These unrecognisable masterpieces were mostly not considered as merit in awarding academic recognition, promotion, ranking or advancement even though they, previously were highly referable. • Due to this “no language choice” policy, many universities around the world have to force their researchers to publish their academic writings in English for the matter of recognition.

5. Some scholars had doubted the policy: • Rey Rocha & Martin Sempere (1999) concluded their discussion by stating that this policy would jeopardise the national dissemination of many useful solutions for some problems. • Hirvela & Belcher (2001)-Dr. Jacinta’s case (p.39) • Moher et al. (2000) challenged Gregoire et al. (1995) that evidently stated many non Anglophone medical journals came up with various conclusions compared to Anglophone medical journals.

6. Turp et al. (1997) argued with American researchers’ report in 1996 which stated that the discovery of new muscle in jaw would not be made if it was not published in English. • Univ. of Michigan and some other institutions in US-dropped their requirement for foreign languages for its doctoral degrees as they did not do previously. • This policy had changed the landscape of sociolinguistics of academic writing around the world which would harm the dissemination of knowledge especially throughout non Anglophone countries.

7. The Rise of larger non Anglophone languages dominance • The data presented in Wayt Gibbs (1995) showed that some larger non Anglophone research languages like Japanese, German, France & Russian had accepted to produce their academic writings in English. • Evidences : • …the percentage of articles from Europe and Asia from 8.7 and 2.2 percent in 1983 to 17 and 12.6 percent, respectively-study by Tompkins, Ko & Donovan (2001).

8. Iverson (2002) found that in 1988 only 9% of all articles in journals supported by the American Medical Association came from non U.S. authors, whereas this had risen to 24% by 2000. • The evidences proved that some non English speaking countries (Japan, Germany, French, Russia, Hong Kong) supported the advance of English in academic world. • So far medicine has taken the lead in opening its Anglophone journals to international contributions, including those from researchers whose first language is other than English.

9. Problems of non Anglophone researchers in writing English academic writings • Many non Anglophone researchers found themselves at disadvantage in : • Technical of English (Flowerdew (1999b)) - lesser facility in expression-less rich vocabulary-took them longer to write research texts-not so critical. - finding out the appropriate literature review for their claims-’off-network’-NNs of English academicians might find some barriers in coping up themselves with updated English-based writings due to shortages of resources

10. (manuals, textbooks, workshops, courses) for NARs to develop their academic.-e.g. Flowerdew’s (2000) interview’s extract with assistant prof. in Hong Kong : …yes, being connected to the leading edge, and the further you get away the more you’re not sure what’s going on anymore…(p.135)

11. 2. removing their perception of being prejudiced by editors and referees against them when considering their location and ‘off network’. - the strict ‘refining process’ practiced by Anglophone journal editors who preferred a certain kind of “worldliness” in academic writings which Pennycook (1994) argues can be associated with Anglophone cultures; diminished nurturing of other academic languages… had lessen NARs’ chance of being involved in contributing their masterpieces.

12. The Suggested Recommendations by the writer • The writer (Swales, 2004, p.54) states that it is methodologically unjustified to preselect for the discourse analysis of academic texts or transcripts only those exemplars which have apparently been written or spoken by native speakers of English • He reasons his above argument by stating that in the future much of the references materials will be informed by corpus linguistics rather than relying on the experts in the language…it seems particularly appropriate to reconsider the privileged status of native speaker judgments of grammaticality or appropriateness of word choice and the like.(Swales, 2004, p.54)

13. The writer also tries to bring the issue of reducing the difficulty of English academic texts present to NNs of English readers as highlighted by Kirkman (1996) even though this issue is still debatable among other related scholars. • His argument for the above issue is that (p.56) linguistic courtesies and sensitivities come into play here, but there is also a widespread belief that lively language, not excluding certain metaphors, can increase the memorability- and perhaps citability-of writing in many research genres.

14. He also recommends that the terminology of Ns and NNs in today’s research arena should be replaced to a more specific and unbiased terminology such as BEP( Broadly English Proficiency) or NEP (Narrowly English Proficiency)-(elaborated further in p.56-57) • Reasons: -the terminology helps to disentangles communicative performance in research settings from mother tongue status. -also helps junior researchers whose their L1 is English to gain much trainings as international junior researchers do.

15. Finally, it is undebatable that English has become the language of research communication but its role in the world’s academic writing should not be driven to the loses of other native languages. • The policy of ‘keeping away the mother tongue status’ is said to be more relevant, at the same time injecting the growth of variability in language used in academic writing-thus nourish the dissemination of knowledge among the global citizens.

16. THANKS FOR LISTENING PREPARED BY MOHD. JUNAIDI MOHD. MUKHTAR 2007240732