Author
ELT Department, Islamic Azad University, Maragheh Branch, Maragheh, Iran
Abstract
The absolute hegemony of international code of (academic) communication has resulted in the development and spread of the discoursal voice of the culture form which historical English has emerged, and, as a consequence, any violation from the generic conventions and thinking patterns born out of such a discourse has resulted in the deprivation of non-native thinkers form active participation in production, publication and distribution of their academic findings. The argument in this paper is based on the proposal that if some of the formulated, standardized patterns of the production of academic knowledge are to be challenged and a new movement towards scientific, academic pluralism is to begin, development of a wider atmosphere for a better treatment and acknowledgment of cultural-historical voices of thinkers of different ethnic, cultural backgrounds seems inevitable. This approach necessitates some different, non-conventional ways of defining the role of language in general and English in particular in academic communication. Our conception of 'international' in this proposal is the development of a virtual code which possesses the capacity of reflecting and encoding various national-cultural discourses within international academic communication. This multi-voiced English would encourage alternative ways of thinking about and understanding the realities of the world, discourage its users from non-critical reading of the superficial patterns of texts, and develop the understanding of its users about the underlying ideologies of discourses shaping and constructing the realities of our world.
Keywords