Cover not available

Article published In: Manufacturing Knowledge
Edited by Alfonso Del Percio and Cécile B. Vigouroux
[Language, Culture and Society 5:2] 2023
► pp. 199–211

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

‘But we’re among peers!’

French academic journals’ editors as reading subjects

 | Université de Rouen Normandie
Published online: 22 February 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.00043.ver
Abstract
Focusing on French social science and humanities journals, this article examines the digital communication surrounding the submission of articles by scholars based in Africa. Using Cameron’s concept of verbal hygiene (Cameron, D. ([1995] 2012). Verbal hygiene. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), I analyze the case of negative reactions from editors triggered by stylistic and rhetorical features related to politeness. Through a detailed case study, the paper shows that such negative reactions involve semiotic processes of linguistic and social differentiation that articulate the moralized persona of the author and the scientific value of his/her work. However, editors’ verbal hygiene attitudes are also intertwined with political concerns aimed at promoting the inclusion of scholars from the Global South. In that context, the analysis reveals a complex interplay between the desire for openness and structural patterns of exclusion that enact long-standing hierarchies in knowledge production. Drawing on Inoue, M. (2003). The listening subject of Japanese modernity and his auditory double: Citing, sighting, and siting the modern Japanese woman. Cultural Anthropology, 18(2), 156–193. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar theory of the listening subject, I argue that this paradox arises from the reader’s particular position within the globalized academic landscape and from the power structures inherent in the circulation of texts between African and French academic contexts.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.French journals, article proposals from Africa and submission letters
  • 3.Verbal hygiene and the reading subject
  • 4.Methods and positionality
  • 5.Negative biases and self-reflexivity
  • 6.“They don’t have the codes”: Editors in search of parity?
  • 7.A Chain of citations and reported speeches
  • 8.Conclusion
  • References
References (27)
References
Bahadoran, Z., Mirmiran, P., Kashfi, K., & Ghasemi, A. (2021). Scientific publishing in biomedicine: How to write a cover Letter? International Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, 19(3), e115242. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Belcher, D. D. (2007). Seeking acceptance in an English-only research world. Journal of Second Language Writing, 16(1), 1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, J., Muyllaert, N., Huysmans, M., & Dyers, C. (2005). Peripheral normativity: Literacy and the production of locality in a South African township school. Linguistics and Education, 16(4), 378–403. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1976). Le champ scientifique. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 2(2–3), 88–104. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cameron, D. ([1995] 2012). Verbal hygiene. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Canagarajah, A. S. (2002). A geopolitics of academic writing. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coetzee, C. (2018). Unsettling the air-conditioned room: Journal work as ethical labour. Journal of the African Literature Association, 12(2), 101–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flowerdew, J. (2001). Attitudes of journal editors to nonnative speaker contributions. TESOL Quarterly, 35(1), 121–150. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gal, S., & Irvine, J. T. (2019). Signs of difference: Language and ideology in social life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gueye, A. (2002). Dark side of the African brain drain: Experiences of Africans holding doctoral degrees in social sciences and humanities living in France. African Issues, 30(1), 62–65. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2019). Plutôt union libre que séparation. Les chercheurs africains francophones et l’Université française dans le contexte de réarrangement global du champ académique par les États-Unis. Histoire de la Recherche Contemporaine. La Revue du Comité pour l’Histoire du CNRS, 8(2), 160–179. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heng Hartse, J., & Kubota, R. (2014). Pluralizing English? Variation in high-stakes academic texts and challenges of copyediting. Journal of Second Language Writing, 241, 71–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hountondji, P. J. (2001). Le savoir mondialisé : Déséquilibres et enjeux actuels. La Mondialisation vue d’Afrique. Université de Nantes/Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Guépin, Nantes, at: [URL]
Hymes, D. H. (1996). Ethnography, linguistics, narrative inequality: Toward an understanding of voice. London: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Inoue, M. (2003). The listening subject of Japanese modernity and his auditory double: Citing, sighting, and siting the modern Japanese woman. Cultural Anthropology, 18(2), 156–193. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kandiah, T. (2005). Academic writing and global inequality: Resistance, betrayal and responsibility in scholarship. Language in Society, 34(1), 117–132. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lawrance, B. (2020). Structural racism, whiteness, and the African Studies Review. African Studies Review, 63(3), 443–448. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lillis, T. M., & Curry, M. J. (2010). Academic writing in a global context: The politics and practices of publishing in English. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Merton, R. K. (1973). The normative structure of science. In N. W. Storer (Ed.), The sociology of science. Theoretical and empirical investigations (pp. 267–278). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nature. (2021). Editorial: Tackling systemic racism requires the system of science to change. Nature, 593(7859), 313. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Piller, I., Zhang, J., & Li, J. (2022). Peripheral multilingual scholars confronting epistemic exclusion in global academic knowledge production: A positive case study. Multilingua, 41(6), 639–662. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quashie, H. (2019). L’expatriation de la recherche française en Afrique subsaharienne : Distinctions raciales et épistémologies scientifiques (Sénégal, Madagascar, Bénin). Histoire de la Recherche contemporaine. La Revue du Comité pour l’Histoire du CNRS, 8(2), 208–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosa, J. (2019). Looking like a language, sounding like a race: Raciolinguistic ideologies and the learning of Latinidad. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swales, J. M. (1996). Occluded genres in the academy: The case of the submission letter. In E. Ventola & A. Mauranen (Eds.), Academic writing: Intercultural and textual issues (pp. 45–58). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van den Avenne, C. (2017). De la bouche même des indigènes: Échanges linguistiques en Afrique coloniale. Paris: Vendémiaire.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vigouroux, C. B. (2017). The discursive pathway of two centuries of raciolinguistic stereotyping: ‘Africans as incapable of speaking French.’ Language in Society, 46(1), 5–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weth, C., & Juffermans, K. (Eds.). (2018). Tyranny of writing: Ideologies of the written word. London: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Nguyen, Trang Thi Thuy & M. Obaidul Hamid
2025. Linguistic shaming, the discourse of (sub)standard English, and religiolinguistic ideologies in Indian media. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 35:2 DOI logo
Vigouroux, Cécile B. & Alfonso Del Percio
2024. Reading or writing is not the question: politicizing the politics of scholarly production and reception [Language, Culture and Society]. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2024:289-290 ► pp. 105 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue