The Privileging of English Language Use in Academia: Critical Reflections from an International Doctoral Seminar

Abstract

In this article, we, a Canadian team of doctoral researchers, reflected on our journey during an International Doctoral Research Seminar (IDRS) held in Beijing in 2015. As five doctoral students and two academics, we metwith our doctoral colleagues from academic institutions in Brisbane (Australia) and Beijing (China). Although we did not discuss or negotiate whichlanguage we would be using in China, we were confronted with our assumption that we would communicate in English. It was apparent that this assumption of English language use privileged some (i.e., Canadian and Australian teams) while disadvantaging others whose first language was not English (i.e., Chinese team). From this confrontation arose questions and concerns about equity in participation. As a result, this unique case study chronicles the Canadian team reflecting on the IDRS experience including our privilege of using English, resultingin a more inclusive space for all future participants to engage equitably in this international collaboration. We used a transcultural and transidiomatic framework from Pennycook (2007) that guided our reflections. Through discourse analysis, we were able to make meaning of our reflections, resulting in the necessity to address the domination of English as a linguafranca in academic spaces and facilitate an inclusive transcultural space for all participants.