Bravo González, P; (2016) The cost of having a lingua franca: is English beneficial? UCL Institute of Education: London, UK.

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Abstract

Nowadays, English is recognised as a common language for scientific communications (Enrique Hamel, 2007; Ferguson, 2007; Kaplan 2001). The global spread of English has beenreported for ´quite a long time-probably since the British Empire was at its greatest expansion´ (Kaplan, 2001; p. 9), it has been continuouslyreferred to as an international language of sciencesince 1967 (Tardy, 2004). Currently, English keeps its dominance in scientific communication because it is preferred in scientific journals (Kaplan, 2001). Several authors claimthat having a common language is important for the immense amount of research which needs to be shared between researchers over the world (Flowerdew and Li, 2009; Tardy, 2004), while others believe that having a lingua franca in science is necessary because the communication is fluent and accessible for most people (Crystal, 2003, in Polo and Varela, 2009). One can also argue that English may be the common language because it is the most preferred language in publication and can benefit the scientific community with new knowledge (Flowerdew and Li, 2009).However,Tardy’swork in addition to recognising this role of English as an International Language of Science (EILS), also sees English as a ‘dominating and overpowering force’ (Tardy, 2004; p. 247) which can destroy others languages. Likewise, in the history of language dominance some authors argue that English is an accidental common languagerelated to historical situations in the humanity, and as an accident can damage people who cannot haveEnglish as their first language (Ferguson, 2007; Kaplan 2001). The aim of this essay is to explore this second stance of English as a carnivorouslanguageand to discuss about its costs and implications for a wider community of international students and researchers, who are non-native speakers. For that purpose, I will begin explaining the history of language dominance. I then turn to describe the history of publication in science focusing in the preference of language, multilingualism and inequities in the scientific communication. Finally, I will explore the implications for international students and researchers in terms of their academic writing and publishing. This essay concludes with some implications for international students and non-native English speaker researchers and also implications for my future programme as an international student in the UK.

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