Krystyna Warchał, Paweł Zakrajewski

ABSTRACT

Sharing research internationally is a hallmark of modern scholarship. Transformations in higher education and science policies, membership in international organisations, and the pursuit of high-quality research often involve publishing in more than one language. Additionally, the dominance of English as a global language of science has made many scholars reconsider their linguistic practices (Ammon, 2001; Curry & Lillis, 2014; Kulczycki, 2020). Such considerations are especially complex in disciplines which are strongly embedded in specific language and cultural contexts, such as the social sciences and humanities (SSH). In this talk, we report on the results of a study on multilingual publication practices of Polish SSH scholars. We look into the main languages of publication, the share of foreign language publications in scholars’ output, future language plans, and the main reasons for these decisions. The analysis is based on data collected in a survey among researchers affiliated with 20 Polish universities. A total of 1525 questionnaires were analysed, providing insight into language choices in 17 SSH disciplines. The findings demonstrate the multilingual nature of communicating research, a model which Sivertsen (2018) considers typical of the SSH; a strong position of the national language; and a dominant position of English as the language of international communication, with a noticeable presence of five other languages. The findings point to the role of international cooperation, projected receivers of the research results, and current evaluation schemes in decisions regarding the language of publication, and highlight the need for a research policy that fosters multilingual research practices.

Keywords

multilingual publishing; multilingual researchers; Polish scholars; research dissemination; social sciences; humanities; research policy

References

1. Ammon, U. (Ed.) (2001). The dominance of English as a language of science: Effects on other languages and language communities. Mouton de Gruyter.

2. Curry, M. J., & Lillis, T. M. (2014). Strategies and tactics in academic knowledge production by multilingual scholars. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 22(32), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v22n32.2014.

3. Kulczycki, E., Guns, R., Pölönen, J. at al. (2020). Multilingual publishing in the social sciences and humanities: A seven-country European study. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 71(11), 1371­–1385. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24336

4. Sivertsen, G. (2016). Patterns of internationalization and criteria for research assessment in the social sciences and humanities. Scientometrics, 107, 357–368. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-1845-1