UC Riverside

Is the amount of research papers published in English by non-native English-speaking researchers determined by social conditions? To answer this, I use multiple regression analyses to study a random sample of academic researchers in Turkey (N = 3293). I show that it is determined by social conditions and that intra-national inequalities constitute the scientific lingua franca, i.e., English, as an additional dimension of the social hierarchy in the production of knowledge. The results suggest implementing state policies to mitigate the between-country inequality in engaging with international science and within-country inequality, which can potentially result from the former. The manuscript also demonstrates the necessity to treat academic English sociologically and to avoid the reductionism associated with applied linguistics.