Issues with Publishing Abstracts in English: Challenges for Portuguese Linguists’ Authorial Voices

Abstract

This paper assesses the impact of publishing abstracts in English in the Portuguese Linguistics Association (APL) Proceedings from 2001 to 2010. The study was carried out with a corpus of 137 abstracts, follows a Text Linguistics model inspired by the Interactionnisme Sociodiscoursif and links text features to the social practices and genre repertoires of this community. Quantitative data show signs of a "Portuguese identity" in authors' voices such as personal forms, move signaling, long sentences, profuse embedding, heavy subjects, and variations in content selection, but also signs of standard academic guideline-indexed choices in impersonal forms, template sentences, coordinated constituents, nominalizations, and conventional text plans. Standard genre models and writing features from "core" academic communities coexist with alternative and traditional ways of writing and of disseminating knowledge, which is typical of a semiperipheral non-native English-speaking community torn between conflicting language and cultural paradigms. These contrasting tendencies are linked to identity changes within the community, as APL authors try to achieve international recognition by publishing abstracts in English as a Foreign Language. Since the APL research topic is the Portuguese language, the process mirrors the authors' struggle between standard internationalization in English and individual stance in Portuguese.

Brazilian researchers’ activity in international publication: a comparative view between Applied Social Sciences and Engineering

“…While linguistic injustice is seen as a 'myth' by some authors (Hyland, 2016(Hyland, , 2019Zhao, 2017), several others give evidence to the contrary (Bardi & Muresan, 2014;Belcher, 2007;Bennet, 2017;Flowerdew, 2000;Lillis & Curry, 2010;Politzer-Ahles et al, 2016;Uzuner, 2008) As a consequence of the adoption of Anglo-cultural writing conventions as well as the language, complexity is added to the task of learning how to write RAs in English. Depending on researchers' L1, writing in L2 might mean adopting a completely different style in structuring sentences and paragraphs, as Santos and Silva (2016) found in their c o n t e n t s study of article abstracts in English written by Portuguese speakers. One of the best-known conventions, Swales's (1990) CARS model for the introduction of RAs, is shown to be the key to the acceptance of RAs in a study by Zhao (2017, p.49) of NNES writers in social sciences.…”

Scholarly Communications and Social Justice

“…Portuguese scholars Vieira Santos and Nunes da Silva describe the power held by English-fluent scholars, writing that "researchers and reviewers from core Anglophone countries are in a position to dictate parameters to their less-privileged 'peers,' thus imposing not only standard research criteria, but also standard genre models, writing parameters, and publishing guidelines." 11 As Yankah continues, "Other times, manuscripts and contributions have been rejected for being rather 'descriptive,' 'too data-oriented,' 'lacking theoretical grounding,' or 'not in tune with global jargon and metadiscourse.'" 13 The reliance on Western academic English language and its norms excludes valuable content that does not fit its container, and shapes what counts as legitimate research, from the questions that can be asked to how they can be answered.…”

Introduction to the Special Issue: Researching, Teaching, and Supporting Research Publication—Issues for Users of English as an Additional Language

“…I have chosen the last of these for what follows. We have two papers from the perspectives of those supporting EAL authors at the level of individual manuscript (an author's editor [4] and a translation specialist [5], two that analyse aspects of the written texts themselves, titles [6] and abstracts [7], to gain insights of value across the community, and two that focus on how novice research authors learn their craft [8,9]. However, across these groupings additional themes are highlighted.…”

“…However, across these groupings additional themes are highlighted. To what extent do, or should, EAL authors uncritically adopt the ways of writing and constructing knowledge approved by the English-language, Western academy [4,7,8]? What processes and players are key in helping EAL authors gain acceptance for their research articles and how can their contributions be strengthened [4,5,8,9]?…”

“…What processes and players are key in helping EAL authors gain acceptance for their research articles and how can their contributions be strengthened [4,5,8,9]? How can close analysis of the written text open windows onto successful practices [4,6,7]? How does the pressure to publish in English impact the working and writing lives of researchers who use English as an additional language (all papers)?…”