Linguistic inequality in scientific communication today

This volume is dedicated to the implications and consequences of the almost exclusive use of English as the language of scientific communication. While until the end of the Seventies of the last century, scientific communication was characterized by a high degree of shared multilingualism, a drastic change towards English monolingualism has taken place from the beginning of the Eighties, at first in the so-called hard sciences (natural sciences, medicine, technology, and mathematics) – under the threat of the ‘bibliometric measurement’ via the impact factor – and gradually also, though still to a lesser extent, in the social sciences and humanities. The choice of English is usually seen as “natural” or at least “unavoidable”, without considering that it could involve problems and be inequitable. This volume of AILA Review presents and discusses this phenomenon and its social implications with the support of a number of internationally known authors who outline its scientific relevance and put forward various options of language policy.