Unexpected Emails to Submit Your Work: Spam or Legitimate Offers? The Implications for Novice English L2 Writers

Josep Soler and Andrew Cooper
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Josep Soler: Department of English, Stockholm University, Universitetsvägen 10E, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Andrew Cooper: Department of English, Stockholm University, Universitetsvägen 10E, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

Publications, 2019, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: This article analyzes the discourse of what have been termed ‘predatory publishers’, with a corpus of emails sent to scholars by hitherto unknown publishers. Equipped with sociolinguistic and discourse analytic tools, we argue that the interpretation of these texts as spam or as legitimate messages may not be as straightforward an operation as one may initially believe. We suggest that English L2 scholars might potentially be more affected by publishers who engage in these email practices in several ways, which we identify and discuss. However, we argue that examining academic inequalities in scholarly publishing based exclusively on the native/non-native English speaker divide might not be sufficient, nor may it be enough to simply raise awareness about such publishers. Instead, we argue in favor of a more sociologically informed analysis of academic publishing, something that we see as a necessary first step if we wish to enhance more democratic means of access to key resources in publishing.

Keywords: academic publishing; predatory publishers; spam email; indexicality; linguistic repertoire; English L2 writers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 D83 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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