English or Chinese? The trade-off between local and international publication among Chinese academics in the humanities and social sciences

Abstract

Within a global trend of the anglicization of academic publishing, in the humanities and social sciences (HSS) publication in indigenous languages, nevertheless, in many contexts, continues to thrive. Given that the overall anglicization of academic publishing tends to be negotiated at the local level, this study seeks to discover how a potentially competing relationship between English and Chinese might be manifested in the context of China. Focused on the praxis of Chinese HSS academics writing for scholarly publication, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 academics across a range of HSS disciplines at an elite research-based university in China. The study sought to find out, firstly, how and to what extent English is used among these participants, and, secondly, what their attitudes are towards the official policy of encouraging more international publication (in English). The findings, based on this limited sample, suggest that Chinese will most likely retain its dominant position as the language of research and publication for Chinese HSS scholars, but that international publication in English will nevertheless increase. The paper concludes by suggesting that, to facilitate visibility of peripheral scholarship on the part of scholars such as the participants in this study, efforts can be made from both the periphery and the center.