Gibson Ferguson Language Planning and Education Edinburgh ...

The global spread of English 137
In the literature, however, it is the disadvantage suffered by non-native speakers,
particularly in scientific and academic communication, rather than the advantage of
native speakers that attracts the most comment. Phillipson (2000a: 97), for example,
draws an unfavourable comparison between an English-speaking conference, where
some participants struggled to express their ideas in English, and a conference
conducted in Esperanto, at which participants from a range of countries communicated
on equal terms with ease and confidence.
Knapp (2002: 236–8), meanwhile, casts doubt on the belief that lingua franca
interactions, whether between non-native speakers, or natives and non-natives,
are almost invariably cooperative. Drawing on data from a week-long international
student simulation in English of United Nations proceedings, he observes that this
competitive situation not only produced low levels of participation by non-native
speakers, 12 who subsequently complained of feeling excluded, but, worse, instances
of discriminatory behaviour directed at non-natives whose linguistic limitations
slowed the formulation of their contributions. Although, very significantly, the
initiators of this uncooperative behaviour were what Knapp (2002: 224) refers to as
‘quasi-native speakers’, that is second language speakers of a near-native proficiency
level rather than British or American native speakers, these instances, unrepresentative
though they may be, do highlight the potential or actual communicative
disadvantage that non-native users of English may experience at international
conferences or similar events.
Inequalities in the domain of academic/scientific publication
Other writers focus more on inequalities in the domain of academic publication.
There are claims, for example, that scholars from non-English-speaking backgrounds
are disadvantaged when it comes to getting their work published in high prestige
international journals that overwhelmingly publish in English (see Tardy 2004).
And there are also arguments (de Swaan 2001b: 78) that, because these periodicals
are typically British or American, it is British and American editors that assume
important gatekeeping roles, exerting ‘a major impact on the selection and
promotion of academics in other countries who depend on these publications for
their advancement’. Their gatekeeping practices also bolster, so it is argued, the
dominance of Anglo-American discursive norms, styles and conceptions, to the
disadvantage of third world scholars in particular (see Tardy 2004). Another
common criticism is that work not published in English often tends to be undervalued
or even ignored, thereby falling into the domain of lost science (Phillipson
2001: 9; Tardy 2004: 251).
Empirical evidence for these claims, as opposed to anecdote or assertion, is mixed,
particularly with regard to the question of how difficult it is for non-native academics
to get their work published in prestigious international journals. Tardy (2004) cites
various authors such as Canagarajah (1996) who emphasise the difficulties, not all of
them linguistic. Contrary evidence, however, is supplied by Wood (2001: 80), who
concludes on the basis of a study of one year’s issues (1997–98) of the journals
Science and Nature that while there may be financial and physical impediments