Abstract
This chapter reports on a self-case study of a francophone scholar who served as an editor for a high-profile English language journal. Drawing on research into multilingual genre learning, this autobiographical narrative examines the contexts and interactions that facilitated the learning of a key genre, the peer review of research articles submitted for publication, with varying degrees of practice and confidence in English and French. Linguistic insecurities arise in both languages, but from different sources. The author then reflects on the conditions that enabled him to become a journal editor and to witness in this role the challenges scholars from outside the anglophone centre face in the current English-dominated regime of knowledge production. Implications are drawn for the ongoing debate on linguistic injustice in academic publication and the training of novice reviewers through explicit genre instruction. On November 21, 2013, I received an invitation from Rosa Manchón and Christine Tardy, the journal’s co-editors at the time, to replace Rosa as co-editor of the Journal of Second Language Writing (JSLW) at the end of her term in July 2014.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bourdieu, P. (1994). Raisons pratiques. Sur la théorie de l'action. Seuil.
Canagarajah, A. S. (1996). “Nondiscursive” requirements in academic publishing, material resources of periphery scholars, and the politics of knowledge production. Written Communication, 13(4), 435–472.
Cheng, A. (2018). Genre and graduate-level research writing. University of Michigan Press.
Gentil, G. (2011). A biliteracy agenda for genre research. Journal of Second Language Writing, 20(1), 6–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2010.12.006
Gentil, G., & Tardy, C. (2015). A geopolitics of second language writing: Updating the map, broadening the landscape. Paper Presented at the Symposium on Second Language Writing, Auckland, New Zealand.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Martin, J. R. (1993). Writing science: Literacy and discursive power. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Hyland, K. (2016). Academic publishing and the myth of linguistic injustice. Journal of Second Language Writing, 31, 58–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2016.01.005
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press
Leki, I. (2003). Tangled webs: Complexities of professional writing. In C. P. Casanave & S. Vandrick (Eds.), Writing for scholarly publication: Behind the scenes in language education. Taylor & Francis.
Paltridge, B. (2017). The discourse of peer review: Reviewing submissions to academic journals. Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48736-0
Politzer-Ahles, S., Girolamo, T., & Ghali, S. (2020). Preliminary evidence of linguistic bias in academic reviewing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 47, 100895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2020.100895
Ricoeur, P. (1990). Soi-même comme un autre [Oneself as another]. Seuil.
Tardy, C. M., Sommer-Farias, B., & Gevers, J. (2020). Teaching and researching genre knowledge: Toward an enhanced theoretical framework. Written Communication, 37(3), 287–321. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088320916554
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gentil, G. (2022). On Becoming a Bilingual Gatekeeper: The Journey of a Francophone Editor for an English-Language Journal. In: Habibie, P., Hultgren, A.K. (eds) The Inner World of Gatekeeping in Scholarly Publication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06519-4_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06519-4_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-06518-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-06519-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)