Reflection Task 3

ENGLISH IN ACADEMIC LIFE

            From this week’s reflection articles which I have read, "Could the dominance of English harm global scholarship?" is the most interesting article in accordance with the usage of academic English in our lives. Currently the usage of academic English is relatively common all around the world. In the article, the writer criticizes this situation negatively. S/he mentions that the scientists or doctors have to publish their researches in English due to all the researches around the world written in academic English. S/he states that the German linguist Ranier Enrique Hamel researched the usage of English in academic life and found in 1880 there were 36% of published works in English. When we have looked at these days, many researches or works are published in academic English. However, I do not think that this is a harmful situation for any languages. Publishing in English is about sharing scientific information with much more people because most of the people are associated with English. I support publishing in English due to sharing the scientific developments and reaching more and more people all over the world.

          First of all, sharing the information we want is very important in today’s world. Many people get lots of information online thanks to their knowledge of the foreign language “English”. The articles are available on the internet mostly in English. This is because publishing in English is getting more obligations for the publishers because they get the chance to reach more readers. For instance, when we look for the theories such as social constructivism or individual constructivism in usage of education field, we are able to reach more scientific articles, developments, and videos online. When we research these topics in our language, the articles or videos that we will be able to find are very limited. Therefore, academic English is essential for sharing the information.

            Secondly, English is the language which is used all over the world, but many people may not know Arabic language, Turkish and so on. Thus, the scientists, doctors and researchers prefer to write their articles in English. When they publish these works, many people have the opportunity to benefit from these works to broaden their horizons or to improve their knowledge store. To illustrate, the students who have an education especially have to research their objects and make a presentation about them. Therefore, they are able to get much more information about their objects. Also, they should follow the developments related to their objects all over the world. If the students know English which is academic language accepted everywhere, they can find out new developments or knowledge about their topic. That is to say, they can take an advantage of these different developments.

            To sum up, our world is going through changes day by day. We have to adapt to this new world in any field, so English is required to share new information and to reach them all around the world. Therefore, English articles and works are obtainable.