¡°Linguistic bias¡± against academics who use English as their second language is a ¡°myth¡± used to explain why substandard research is not published in top-ranked journals, a study claims.

Scholars working in non-anglophone countries have long complained that many papers submitted to academic journals are rejected due to little more than their authors¡¯ less-than-perfect use of English, according to the study by Ken Hyland, professor of applied linguistics at the University of Hong Kong.

Such ¡°discrimination¡± against non-native English speakers is widely accepted as the norm across the world, leading to claims that higher education¡¯s publication system ¨C and university rankings which rely on such data ¨C are rigged in favour of English-speaking academics and institutions, explains Professor Hyland, director of Hong Kong¡¯s Centre for Applied English Studies.

But there is ¡°little evidence to support the idea that there is a widespread and systematic bias against writers whose first language is not English¡±, says Professor Hyland in a paper titled ¡°Academic publishing and the myth of linguistic injustice¡±, published in the latest edition of the Journal of Second Language Writing.

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While the ¡°bluntness¡± of some ¡°brutal¡± comments by academic reviewers ¡°may lead EAL [English as an additional language] writers to believe that language has played a decisive role in the rejection of their contribution¡±, this is unlikely to be the case, he says.

¡°Interviews with editors and studies of reviewers¡¯ comments¡­tend to find no evidence to support claims of prejudicial treatment or undue attention to language in editorial decisions,¡± he writes.

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Language problems may actually point to more fundamental issues with the research caused by the disadvantages of ¡°physical, scholarly and financial isolation¡± or may be simply due to a lack of awareness over the crucial discipline of writing for academic papers, Professor Hyland adds.

In fact, there were three times as many articles published in high-impact journals by academics with English as an additional language in 2011 compared with 2000, based on an analysis of journal papers in top-ranked publications in six subject areas, he says.

The ¡°pervasive¡± idea that English speakers enjoyed an innate advantage over non-native English speakers was not only wrong, but "offensive to the many reviewers, editors and mentors who seek to support non-anglophone authors in getting published¡±, as well as ¡°damaging¡± and ¡°discouraging¡± to academics as it ¡°tells them to look for prejudice rather than revision¡±.

The ¡°pervasive view which asserts that EAL scholars are disadvantaged in the cut-throat competitive world of academic publishing by virtue of their status as second language writers¡­has gained the privileged position of an unchallenged orthodoxy," argues Professor Hyland.

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¡°Many EAL novice writers automatically invoke the stereotype of ¡®non-native speaker' when finding themselves vulnerable in the review process¡­[but it is a] framing largely based on unexamined assumptions and a lack of research into anglophone practices,¡± he adds.

jack.grove@tesglobal.com