Peer reviewers’ recommendations for language improvement in research writing

Abstract

Peer reviewing is an essential procedure in the publication of research so that the eventual acceptance or rejection of a proposed submission to a journal ultimately depends on the outcome of the assessment and the reviewers' decision in their reports. As experts in a particular field, reviewers tend to focus their praise and criticism on the content of the submission; however, comments on the use of the language are also provided because fails in the use of language very often lead to fails in communicating research findings successfully. This paper examines the peer reviews from 119 contributions by Anglophone and non-Anglophone scholars to an English-medium journal and discusses the nature of the praise and criticism contained in such peer review reports with particular attention to the outcome of the review and the types of linguistic infelicities found in the manuscripts. Conclusions aim at gaining a clearer understanding of the research writing process and, more particularly, of the role that English language use plays in the final acceptance or rejection of a research article submitted for publication in international journals.

Publish in English or Perish in Portuguese: Struggles and Constraints on the Semiperiphery

“…They are also "speech communities" in the Hymesian sense, i.e., groups of "users of a particular (specialized) code within a repertoire" who share particular ways of writing/speaking in a language within a configuration of disciplinary norms and rules ( [32], p. 32), or "discourse communities", i.e., groups of individuals who share public goals and means of intercommunication ( [33], pp. [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. This paper adopts the comprehensive notion of "communities of practice" since 'practice' highlights socially defined ways of doing and goes beyond sharing an interest.…”

“…Numerous scholars have studied these disadvantages and resulting inequalities (see, for instance, [1], p. 347, [8], [9,10], p. 248, [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], amongst others). Others have questioned the criteria that distinguish NNSE from NSE (see, for instance, [23], p. 214, on the potential of English as an international language of Science, [24] on the limitations of this fuzzy distinction, [25] on the acceptance of English articles from NNSE and [26] on the myth of "linguistic injustice").…”

Dificultades de los investigadores españoles para publicar en revistas internacionales: métricas, editores y multilingüismo

“…Sin embargo, numerosos estudios han revelado un importante matiz: la comunidad investigadora no anglófona se ha visto cada vez más presionada a publicar en inglés en lugar de hacerlo en su lengua materna (Curry & Lillis, 2004;Swales, 2004;Moreno, 2010;Lillis & Curry, 2010). Este hecho aumenta necesariamente la dificultad percibida en el manejo del lenguaje (Flowerdew, 1999) en un contexto que, además, establece un sesgo negativo hacia usos y formas de expresión que se apartan del «inglés estándar» impuesto por las estrictas políticas lingüísticas de las revistas (Li & Flowerdew, 2007), incluso cuando se trata de revisores no anglófonos (Bocanegra-Valle, 2015), como veremos a continuación. 3,9 4,7 4,9 6 El efecto de la progresiva globalización lingüística de la ciencia ha conllevado una creciente presión hacia la estandarización, no sólo en el ámbito lexicogramatical sino también en el semántico, textual y sociopragmático (Gotti et al, 2002;Gotti, 2012).…”

Shakespeare and the English Poets: The Influence of Native Speaking English Reviewers on the Acceptance of Journal Articles

“…This possible lack of impartiality appears especially important as far as the language employed in the article is concerned. In order to be recognised in their fields, academics need to publish in English [15] because in the context of academic publishing, international journals really mean English medium [3]. It is possible that concerns about how authors discuss their research might overshadow what they have to say.…”

“…It is possible that concerns about how authors discuss their research might overshadow what they have to say. Bocanegra-Valle [15] claims that reviewers "are preoccupied with the linguistic infelicities in the submitted texts" (p. 214). Other research echoes the belief that reviewers focus very heavily on the language used.…”