Languages of publication among multilingual researchers: Locality to mobility in the Taiwan context

Abstract

Faculty of eight universities around Taiwan were surveyed regarding the extent to which they use English for academic publication, why they use English, and their perceptions of their experiences. Analysis focuses on participants who used English and Chinese for journal articles in two disciplinary groups: Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) and Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM), at different academic ranks. Analysis shows that they publish in English for similar reasons, closely related to institutional policies pushing “international” publications, but experience the process differently. Within disciplinary groups, respondents' language use at different academic ranks also varied. Adopting Blommaert (2010), the paper explores multilingual scholars’ movement along the sociolinguistic scale of academic rank in relation to language use that connotes an indexical order from locality to mobility. Compared to HSS, STEMM participants experienced greater mobility in the Anglophone-centric view because they published more in English, secured more first-author international collaboration, and perceived less sense of barrier to publishing in English. The relationship between the privileging of internationally indexed journals and mobility is considered. Finally, the implications of such policies in pursuit of internationalization is discussed and a critical pragmatic approach to higher education suggested.