The Language of Academic Research

Besides the language of scientific and technical literature, the language of academic research world-wide also happens to be English. This has become all the more true with the advent of computers into academia. However, the English that is used in the cyber world is a deterritorialized language and it would be more correct to call it Microsoft English. This English is different from the British English that most Indians are used to. For instance, the computer will underline the British spellings like ‘sanitise’, ‘favour’, ‘traveller’ etc as wrong spellings and urge you to convert to American spellings. Cronin explains: “Users of British English are a minority on the new Anglophone electronic net and they constantly have to translate interlingually from American into British English and vice versa” (151). A hierarchy is clearly forming among speakers of the same language, with the speakers of cyber-English located at the top.

This knowledge of cyber language applies to academic research also, especially with the use of style sheets in the writing of research papers for publication in academic journals. Let us take the case of English literature. Most journals of repute in the field today are US-based and the style sheets usually followed are the MLA stylesheet or Chicago Manual of Style. They insist on standardized American spellings and syntax – in short, writers of research papers are strongly advised to internalize the stylistic and syntactic peculiarities of cyber English or Microsoft English. The papers are usually submitted electronically which means that they are forced through the rigours of word processing software to render it fit for foreign consumption. Ironically, even journals devoted to translation studies insist on this monochromatic language!