Sociomaterial Paradoxes in Global Academic Publishing: Academic Literacies at the Intersection of Practice and Policy

Abstract

His research interests include professional and technical communication, particularly in international contexts, online teaching and learning, and teaching writing in the disciplines. His previous work appeared in IEEE Transactions for Professional Communication, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, and other outlets. Together with Kirk St. Amant, he is the winner of the 2017 CCCC Award for Best Original Collection of Essays in Technical and Scientific Communication for the book Rethinking Post-Communist Rhetoric: Perspectives on Rhetoric, Writing, and Professional Communication in Post-Soviet Spaces.he creeping dominance of Anglophone-center journals as the most viable publication venues worldwide has resulted in the ubiquity of English as "the language" for academic publishing as well as the preeminence of Western forms of genre and research conventions. Citing 2004 data from Ulrich's Periodical Directory, Lillis and Curry note that 74% of the periodicals listed that year were published in English. Drawing from the Institute for Scientific Information, they cite that 90% of social science articles were published in English ("Interactions with Literacy Brokers" 4). Clearly, academics who write outside of the centralized Anglophone center, which includes the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, have experienced increasing pressure to publish in English (Canagarajah, Geopolitics, "'Nondiscursive' Requirements"; Horner et al.; Lillis and Curry, Academic Writing, "Interactions with Literacy Brokers"; Tardy). Such increased pressure is exacerbated through ties to increased rewards, as publishing in English can yield higher salaries and/ or increased research funding because economic and disciplinary mobility are often tightly linked with English language publications. Thus, functioning like T

Options in the (Semi-)Periphery: A Review of Multilingual Scholars’ Choices of Topics, Methodologies, and Theories in Research and Publishing

“…Similar to the scholars in Xu's [55] study, the MSSP in Rounsaville and Zemliansky's [7] interview-based study and Ge's [22] qualitative research also spoke to the value of sharing national research with international audiences. In Rounsaville and Zemliansky's [7] study, the four Ukrainian scholars, two in social sciences and two in natural sciences and engineering, considered it important to publish internationally about national issues to promote the achievements of Ukrainian researchers. They were strongly motivated by both personal interest in publishing in journals outside their country on topics related to Ukraine and the aim of raising the status of Ukrainian science.…”

“…In parallel with the personal desire to achieve professional success, many MSSP want to publish to increase the reputation of research conducted by scholars in their local/national context [6,7,22,55]. To this end, they may choose to share local/national research findings with the international community [7,22,40,55] and/or enrich center-based theories [6,13,61].…”

“…Some MSSP publish the findings of their studies on local issues internationally to draw global attention to research generated in their national context [7,22]. For example, Xu [55] qualitatively analyzed 172 institutional policy documents on incentives for publishing in China and interviewed 65 HSS academics in six Chinese universities.…”

“…Beyond adding to scholarly conversations and generating reputation, many MSSP are also enthusiastic about making social contributions to their national societies through their research [6,7,45]. These scholars, who work in various disciplinary fields including science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and HSS, care about the needs and interests of the local people as they choose topics, methodologies, and/or theories [6,7,45]. In particular, they are interested in using their publications to inform the practices of local communities [13,66] and educate the local public [22,41,45].…”

“…On the one hand, scholars may feel pressured to publish to advance their careers and to build their research networks and reputation [3][4][5]. At the same time, many scholars who work outside of Anglophone contexts and use English as an additional language (EAL) may want to share their work with wider audiences and make academic and social contributions beyond their local community [6,7]. Such goals often entail publishing for multiple communities, which can add complexity to the work lives of multilingual scholars, who often use multiple languages in conducting and distributing research [8][9][10].…”