Chinese university faculty’s motivation and language choice for scholarly publishing

Abstract

Research on scholarly publishing has focused predominantly on bi/multilingual researchers’ experiences and practices of publishing in English with scant attention paid specifically to their motivation and language choice for bi/multilingual publishing. Drawing on data collected from 318 Chinese university faculty members, this study examines bilingual researchers’ motivation (i.e., interest value, utility value, cost, and ability self-concept) and language choice (i.e., first language only, English only, or both English and first language) for publishing their research articles, and factors that may influence their motivation and language choice. Mixed-design ANOVAs revealed clear language-, discipline-, and overseas experience-based differences in their motivation, and complex interactions among language, discipline, and overseas experience. A multinomial logistic regression found significant effects of disciplinary background, overseas experience, and perceived ability to write English research articles on participants’ choice of publishing in Chinese only or in both Chinese and English. These results provide some evidence against the seemingly unstoppable spread of English as the language of publication and the widely-held view of utility as the single most important driving force behind it, and point to a complex and multidimensional picture of Chinese researchers’ motivation and language choice for scholarly publishing