English for publication or publication for English?

Abstract The dominance of English as the uncontested language of international research publication has gained particular significance as a research concern. However, the sociopolitics of publishing in English by speakers of other languages, including the related national and institutional ideologies and policies in non-Anglophone contexts, remain under-investigated. In this study, we examined policies of academic writing for publication in Iranian higher education, specifically probing how these policies are received by university faculty members. Considering the official policies in this context, which underscore English as the favored language of publishing, we conducted semi-structured individual interviews (overall, around 80 hours) with 53 academics representing 46 universities from around the country (across two disciplinary categories of Social Sciences/Humanities and Basic Sciences/Engineering). The analysis of interviews through iterative qualitative coding revealed how the participants felt the pressure of policies for publishing in English as well as how most of them embraced, while a minority avoided or resisted, these policies. We discuss the implications of these orientations as well as similar trends that foster the dominance of English and its neoliberal associations around the non-Anglophone world.