Write in Their Tongue: Iranian Higher Education Policies of Publishing in English

Scholarly publication has turned into a growing concern affecting the lives of academics across the world. The increasing demand by higher education institutions for publications in high-profile venues has created various policy issues, including the ones about the language of publication, and more specifically, about writing and publishing in English by speakers of other languages. In this study, we investigate policies of publishing in English in Iranian higher education based on qualitative content analysis of ۳۰ national policy documents and ۱۷۰ university bylaws released by ۴۶ Iranian universities over the past twenty-three years. The emerging policy lines reveal that the research evaluation system and the structure of incentives as well as institutional pressure mechanisms all tend to act in favor of publishing in English in a context where it is the academic language of only a small minority. The implications of such policy directions for higher education in Iran are discussed along with possible messages for other contexts around the world.

Keywords:

second language writing , academic writing , higher education policies , publishing in English , policies of academic publishing , second language writing , academic writing , higher education policies , publishing in English , policies of academic publishing