The Spread of English in Globe

Abstract

The emergence of English as the international language of scientificcommunication has been so amply documented (e.g. see Sano, 2002; Ammon,2003) that its dominance is hardly disputed empirically even by those mostcritical of this state of affairs. More contested, however, are the effects of thisdominance: with two sets of concerns particularly salient: (i) the potentialdetrimental impact on other languages –even standardised national languages,which are at risk, so it is argued, of being relegated to a lesser role in an incipientglobal diglossia and of losing domains; and (ii) the communicative inequalityproduced by the dominance of English between, in particular, native-speakingscientists/academics and non-native scientists, the latter experiencing relativedisadvantage, it is sometimes claimed, when it comes to placing their work inhigh prestige international journals.This paper investigates both these concerns drawing on a combination ofbibliometric data, literature survey and conceptual analysis, the purpose being todetermine the extent which criticisms relating to domain loss and inequity can besustained. The paper argues that the risk of domain loss is very real, but thatrecent language planning interventions may help avert the danger. As regardsinequality, we argue that while language is still a barrier for some scholars, itseems to be diminishing in importance, with non-language factors surpassingthem as sources of disadvantage. At the end of the paper some tentativesuggestions are made for the amelioration of language-based disadvantage inacademic publication.