Language Preferences in Romanian Communication Sciences Journals: A Web-Based Analysis

Abstract

In modern times, English has become the lingua franca of science, dominating journal publishing ecologies. Multilingual journals keep up the flag, many researchers arguing that, especially in the case of social sciences and humanities, diversity of languages is an asset. In Romania, in the absence of national databases or repositories, the first task to understand linguistic preferences for scientific communication is to map the ground. The study extracted information on Romanian communication sciences journals from four major databases. Out of the 22 identified journals, only eight are dedicated solely to communication sciences, grouped in two poles of communication sciences schools, where doctoral studies in the field have been established. While English dominates the publication world, multilinguistic journals also appear, prevailing in traditional multicultural regions such as Transylvania–Banat. The future of multilingual journals depends on, among other factors, the capacity of the European Union to promote linguistic diversity for scientific purposes. Meanwhile, Romanian journals in communication sciences work towards increasing their impact. Research findings have practical and policy implications, the core idea being that Romanian editors need to strive for better standards in publication and showcase the journals better on the journal’s webpage.

1. Introduction

Sharing scientific knowledge through publication is a sine qua non condition of science development, part of the DNA of scientists all over the world. The language of science, however, changed in time. Latin gave way to modern languages reluctantly. In the 17th and 18th century, for instance, mathematicians (like Leonhard Euler) and physicists (like Isaac Newton) wrote scientific papers in Latin, even if for other purposes they used modern languages. The Proceedings of St. Petersburg Academy, founded in the 1740s, had two official languages: Latin for mathematics and French for all other sciences. In 19th century Europe, German consolidated its status as a language of philosophy, French as a language of diplomacy and humanities, and so forth. As David Banks points out, in 1880 English accounted for less than 40% of scientific publications and by 1910 it had fallen to 30% [1]. From then on, the share of English publications in the scientific world rose at an uneven pace: by 1930 it had risen to about 50%, then seemed to maintain a plateau, after which it gained speed up to the point that in 1997 John Swales named it a “Tyrannosaurus rex”, behaving like “a powerful carnivore gobbling up the other denizens of the academic linguistic grazing grounds” [2] (374). The term was soon picked up and debated in research on the use of languages for scientific purposes [3,4], English becoming the “lingua franca” of modern times [1,5,6]. In the early 20th century, from 1910 to the mid-1920s, German had a greater share of scientific publications than English. In 1920, German accounted for over 40% of publications, English a little over 30%, and French just over 10% [1]. In the second half of the 20th century, however, English surpassed all other languages and, even though it is not the most widely spoken language in the world, started dominating the language of science [7]. Today most scientists feel pressure to publish their papers in English-language journals, to attract the citations and impact that their mother tongue cannot [7,8]. The former “publish or perish” belief of scientists turned into “publish in English or perish” model, as proven by the fact that in natural and medical sciences (NMS), for instance, more than 98% of peer-reviewed documents in the NMS published in 2014 and indexed in the Web of Science were in English [8]. Rogerio Meneghini and Abel L. Packer, in their opinion piece “Is there science beyond English?” [9] called for initiatives to salvage the multilingual world and, with it, to preserve diversity and tear down the barriers in scientific communication. They pointed out that it would take an international effort on the part of editors, index providers, and authors, as well as support from national research agencies interested in developing native scientific languages and increasing both the national and the international visibility of national research [9]. A similar view is shared by Françoise Salager-Meyer [10], who highlighted the fact that “national languages are playing an increasingly important role in many countries where academic reward systems take into consideration publications in domestic journals. Indeed, multilingual scholars across disciplines often resort to both English and national languages to facilitate national scholarly exchange of ideas and new knowledge dissemination” [10,11].

Indeed, in non-English speaking countries, the choice of language for scientific communication was (and still is) a painstaking decision, with multiple implications of political, symbolic, and scientific consequences. Cultural traditions, (old) alliances, and political choices play their role in the ultimate choices. For a brief period, for instance, in the second half of the 20th century in Central and Eastern Europe, Russian was the language of science, while after the disappearance of the USSR in 1991, this language lost ground even in Russia [12]. Writing in the national language was, in Central and Eastern Europe, a matter of asserting the national identity, of developing the language and terminology in the native tongue, of overcoming a situation in which the local language was only for private use, while the language of public life was French, German, Hungarian, or Russian—depending on the specific geopolitical and temporal context. In the second half of the 20th century, the prestige of the national language was no longer challenged, but the 21st century and the acceleration of globalization forces brought along a reopening of the debate on the choice of publication languages for scientific output. To take only the Romanian example, the national standard for promotion in academic careers is tied to publishing in foreign languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish), these results carrying a heavier load than the ones published in Romanian [13].

In 2007, the European Union emphasized its commitment to fostering diversity in language use, appointing its first Commissioner for Multilingualism in the European Commission, Mr. Leonard Orban (from Romania), with a portfolio dedicated exclusively to promoting foreign language learning and use throughout the member states of the EU [14]. A decade later, the progress—in promoting multilingualism for scientific purposes—is not impressive. As Gunnar Sivertsen pointed out, language is invisible in most documents related to this topic, including the “Work Programme 2018–2020 for Science with and for Society” [15]. Appeals to support multilingual scientists increase in the scientific community [11,16,17], some with concrete proposals, but the result is invisible in most documents. At least the first two decades of the 21st century seem to consecrate English as the lingua franca of science, across disciplines [1,5,18,19]. And while scientific writing is remarkably diverse and language preferences are not only domain-bound, but also influenced by national policies, social sciences and humanities (SSH) excel in the variety of publication patterns with languages, types, and coverage in databases, this reality being associated with problems in research evaluation [15]. Social sciences and humanities are typically associated with influencing and improving culture and society, by contributing to the identity-building of a given society, which motivates an inclination towards scholarly publishing at least partly in native languages. Also, “the social sciences, humanities, and law (SSH) are known to have more heterogeneous publication patterns than the sciences, medicine, and technology (STM)”, as shown by a report on science, technology, and innovation indicators [20]. The report also points to the fact that while there is a gradual and stable increase in English language publishing in the SSH, “there are also large differences between the disciplines, indicating that the bilingual situation will prevail in the SSH due to the societal obligations and wider audiences” [20].

To acknowledge this and maintain a level of certified quality, a special repository was created at the end of the 20th century, the Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL), which collaborates with over 1200 publishers and numerous nonaffiliated researchers, in more than 50 languages. In its own words, the Germany-based CEEOL [21] “took responsibility and advocacy for academic publishing in Humanities and Social Sciences in the respective native languages” from Europe and beyond. A similar philosophy animates the Poland-based Index Copernicus, an online database that aims at separating quality scientific journals from the predatory enterprises that abound in the digital world [22]. However, in academia, two databases occupy a leading position when evaluating the impact of research: Scopus and Clarivate Analytics/ISI. They are the most widely used tools for journal evaluation, assessment, and ranking; studies show that articles indexed in these databases also attract the largest number of citations, a core sign for the impact of published research output. For these two databases, English is, by far, the leading language, despite the possibility of accepting other languages as well [23].

In the context of these linguistic realities and debates, this study aims at identifying the language preference in communication sciences in Romania, a scientific branch new to the field of social sciences [24] and new as an area of specialization, practice, and research in this country, with a history of less than three decades (Palea [25]). We will treat communication sciences as a special case within the larger SSH group, since previous studies show that there are differences between disciplines along several indicators, linguistic preferences included [20].

The research needs to start by mapping the territory, since no relevant databases have been created on the national level.

In 2005, around 600 scientific journals applied for evaluation to the National Council of Scientific Research [26]. In 2008, the number raised to over 900 scientific journals that applied for recognition and classification with the National Council of Scientific Research [27]. Evidence for the existence of these journals is difficult to trace. Journals have changed names, affiliations, periodicity, languages, scope, and procedures. A European attempt in 2017 to systematize the field in social sciences and humanities underlined the fact that Romania lacks national databases or repositories that would help identify SSH journals [28]. Also, a COST project (EU funded through the European Cooperation in Science and Technology programme) on initially eight non-English speaking countries dealing with publication patterns in SSH placed Romania under the “no data” rubric in 2018, the project continuing without Romania present, for the remaining seven countries [18]. Academics commenting on Romanian journals are dissatisfied with the quality of these outputs, going so far as to state that a significant portion of the titles called scientific do not actually serve science but are merely scientific popularization journals [29]. Other voices are critical towards the prevalence given to international languages over Romanian [30], deploring the fact that the national language no longer serves the larger public. Our study does not analyze Romanian language-only journals in the selected field of science, because they are not included in any relevant database or repertoire, thus lacking the chance to attract valuable manuscripts. On the other hand, the number of Romanian scholarly journals using English or multilingual media, indexed in international scientific databases, increased significantly in recent years, partly due to the upgrading standards set by the Romanian institutions in charge of the various aspects of academic life (financing, accreditation, career advancement of academics, etc.), partly due to lessons learned from experience in publishing and adding value to the research output [31]. The appraisal of the scientific landscape should, however, start with a clearer image of the territory. This motivated us to set forth the following research objectives:

RO1: To map the field of communication sciences journals in Romania.

RO2: To identify the language preferences displayed by Romanian communication sciences journals.

2. Materials and Methods

This paper focuses only on Romanian journals that are indexed in the Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, ERIH+, and/or CEEOL. The data we used were gathered in June–August 2020. The list of journals was extracted from the websites of these databases and only included journals active in 2020 that are Romania-based. We chose to include all journals that contained a reference to communication studies among the scientific domain specified in the journal description, to get the largest possible picture. Only two Romanian communication science journals are indexed in the Web of Science and they are still in the “emerging” phase of recognition. One of the two journals is also indexed in Scopus. ERIH+ and CEEOL offer a larger image of the field, but additional steps in refining information proved to be necessary, to extract communication science journals out of the several hundreds of listed journals. This study focuses on obtaining information regarding aspects of linguistic preferences in communication sciences publishing (use of language on the webpage of the journal, templates offered, languages of publication for articles, language publication for abstracts, other language-related aspects), as well as general aspects regarding scientific publishing (number of issues per year, indexation preferences). The data regarding these aspects were gathered from the mentioned databases and double-checked on the journals’ websites. One journal was added to the list, namely the Romanian Journal of Journalism and Communication [Revista Română de Jurnalism și Comunicare], which is indexed in other databases considered prestigious in the Romanian journal classification system and is coedited by the Romanian Association of Teachers in Journalism and Communication. In cases where contradictions in information appeared, preference was given to information extracted from the journal website, which is curated by the editorial board. We designed a data collection form to systematically follow through the desired parameters and were able to identify 22 indexed journals that explicitly mention communication studies among their scientific area of interest and/or expertise (Appendix A). In the next step, we tried to identify a pattern in linguistic choices (English only vs. bi- or multilingual publishing) according to regional dispersion of the parenting research unit (university/department/faculty/research center). Information collected from the journal’s homepage was cross-referenced with a verification of the last issue of the journal and with at least two other issues picked randomly on the website, to check the consistency of choices announced in the editorial matter and the description of the journal provided for the databases.

From a historical point of view, Romanian regions had different linguistic traditions: the national capital, the region around it, and Moldova had a strong French affiliation, while in Transylvania–Banat, a multicultural and multilingual type of communication was in use. It was interesting to test whether the tradition survived in the 21st century, with English as a first medium of choice for scientific publishing. Finally, we refined the data and focused on the journals that are committed to further knowledge in communication sciences only, since the initial pool showed that many SSH journals try to embrace a “catch-all” model and use the term in a rather loose meaning, not necessarily covering content pertaining to communication sciences. The confusions are easy to understand. Although communication sciences have been taught in Romania since 1991 [25], it was only in 2004 that they were included as a distinctive branch of social sciences in the Romanian institutions dealing with the evaluation of research output. Also, since in the 1990s some faculties of letters started communication sciences/journalism programs, communication sciences are often associated with philology, education sciences, cultural studies, arts, and so forth [32].

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Overview of Scientific Journal Publishing in Contemporary Romania

Academic journals traditionally embody four functions: registration (third-party establishment by date-stamping of the author’s precedence and ownership of an idea), dissemination (communicating research findings to intended audiences), certification (ensuring quality control through peer review), and archival record (preserving a fixed version of the paper for future reference and citation) [33]. As a distinctive feature, it is expected that journal articles bring new/fresh results to audiences, even disseminate work in progress, while books and monographs have longer production cycles and a broader scope. The obligation, on the part of academics, to have published at least one scientific article per year as proof of scientific research and that their teaching is grounded in original research grew into a written provision that the teaching staff in higher education need to present in a scientific event and/or publish such an outcome of an academic year’s work [34]. The frenzied appearance of journals in the early 1990s was the institutional response to the above-mentioned requirement. In time, the Romanian academic world matured and had to face quality measures, such as reinforcing the tradition of peer review and introducing indexing/abstracting services, to be capable of attracting quality content and international scholars. We selected for the study three of the databases that are evidenced distinctively in national research reports across disciplines, WoS, Scopus, and ERIH+, and a fourth venue, the repository CEEOL, specific for SSH and for giving credit to scientific progress in a multicultural and multilinguistic environment.

To be taken into consideration as counting towards academic career advancement, SSH journals selected by Romanian academics for publishing currently need to be indexed/abstracted in at least three relevant databases (the list is provided). Thus, in some cases indexations overlap, but this ensures the journal a stronger position in the scientific landscape [26]. The first two databases gave, for communication studies, modest results: two journals are indexed in WoS (ESCI) and one of the two is also covered by SCOPUS. At the other end, CEEOL gave several hundred results, which needed manual extraction of information, since communication sciences are incorporated into the larger category of social sciences. Between them, CEEOL and ERIH+ refined the results down to 22 titles (Appendix A), ERIH+ having the advantage that it not only defines communication sciences (and media) as a separate category, but explicitly provides information about the language(s) of publication and the link to the publication itself.

Table 1. List of Romanian communication sciences journals by city and scientific focus.

Journal	City	Scientific Focus
Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Communicatio	Cluj	theoretical and empirical research in communication studies, with a focus on information society issues
2. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies	Cluj	film and media
3. Annals of the University of Craiova for Journalism, Communication and Management	Craiova	journalism, communication, and management
4. Buletinul Institutului Politehnic din Iași secția Științe Socio-Umane	Iasi	language and literature (applied linguistics, literary studies, theatrical and cinematic discourse, foreign language learning/teaching, translation studies); social sciences (education, psychology, philosophy, communication studies)
5. Buletinul Științific al Universității Tehnice de Construcții București Seria: Limbi Străine și Comunicare	Bucharest	humanistic debates (SSH)
6. Communication Interculturelle et Littérature	Galati	SSH
7. Cultural Intertexts	Galati	SSH
8. Ekphrasis. Images, Cinema, Theory, Media	Cluj	cinema, media, and cultural studies
9. HyperCultura	Bucharest	literature (print and hypertext), media studies (radio, television), film studies, visual and performative arts, teaching (language, literature, rhetoric)
10. Information and Communication Sciences Research	Bucharest	information and communication sciences
11. Journal of Communication and Behavioural Sciences	Bucharest	history of communication and behavioral sciences, the professional practice of communication, psychology, cognitive science, and anthropology, communication and behavioral sciences training and education, and communication and behavioral sciences practice and new technology
12. Journal of Media Research	Cluj	media and communication
13. ME.DOK Média–Történet–Kommunikáció	Cluj	history of journalism, contemporary media analyses, studies on the general problem of communication
14. Professional Communication and Translation Studies	Timisoara	communication + translation studies + didactics of foreign languages
15. Revista Română de Jurnalism și Comunicare	Bucharest	communication studies
16. Romanian Journal of Communication and Public Relations	Bucharest	communication studies
17. Saeculum ULBS	Sibiu	social sciences and humanities
18. Social Sciences and Education Research Review	Craiova	universe of social sciences
19. Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai—Ephemerides	Cluj	communication studies
20. Studies in Visual Arts and Communication—An International Journal	Iasi	arts and communication
21. Styles of Communication	Bucharest	communication studies
22. Technium Social Sciences Journal	Constanta	humanities + social sciences (among which is communication studies)

below presents the scientific focus of the journals declared on the website and/or description provided for indexing in the mentioned databases, in alphabetical order. We use the term “scientific focus” to indicate the fields of study that the editors describe as specific for the given journal.

The results were further analyzed from the point of view of linguistic practices, taking into consideration the following parameters: the language of the website (instructions for authors), the official language of publication, the language of the abstract, additional languages for abstracts (if required), as presented in

Table 2. Language preferences displayed by the journals.

Nr. Journal	Web Pages lg				Publication lg						Abstract LG	+Abstract lg
1.	EN				EN						EN
2.	EN				EN						EN
3.	EN				EN						EN
4.	EN				EN		FR				ART LG	+RO
5.	EN				EN		FR	GE		ESP	ART LG
6.	EN	RO	FR		EN	RO	FR				ART LG	+EN/FR for RO
7.	EN				EN						EN
8.	EN		FR		EN						ART LG
9.	EN				EN						EN
10.	EN	RO	FR		EN							EN+RO+FR
11.	EN				EN						EN
12.	EN				EN						ART LG	+EN
13.	EN			HU	EN	RO			HU		EN+RO
14.	EN				EN		FR	GE			ART LG	+EN
15.	EN	RO			EN		FR	GE		ESP	ART LG	+EN
16.	EN				EN						EN
17.	EN	RO			EN	RO	FR	GE			EN
18.	EN				EN						EN
19.	EN	RO			EN						EN
20.	EN				EN		FR			ESP	ART LG	+EN
21.	EN				EN						EN
22.	EN				EN						EN

below. For abstracts written in the same language as the article, the abbreviation ART LG is used.

The order of the journals is the same as in Table 1. English dominates the scene for communicating with potential authors, all journals using it for spreading the word about publication opportunities. In the digital age, the actual location of a journal diminished in importance, by comparison to print-only times, a fact that revolutionized the world of publishing, but also helped level the ground for English [3,28,31]. The typical recruitment pool of authors is the academic community supporting the journal. However, quality criteria require that only a portion of the publishing space be given to the in-house researchers and efforts need to be made to attract researchers from other institutions, preferably from abroad [35]. It naturally follows that a language understood by all should be available for informing authors. Five out of the total number of journals use the national language, Romanian, too, either as a first, or as a second choice. Three webpages maintain the francophone tradition of Romanian science and have a French variant too. A particular case is that of Hungarian: the journal displaying this language is rooted in a multicultural university, where Hungarian-led scholarship has a tradition of several centuries. With the help of various Hungarian donors, the journal appears (online and in print) with Hungarian dominating the publication space, offering also support for Hungarian language teaching in communication sciences (journalism). Occasionally, however, the journal publishes texts in English and Romanian (less frequent), a situation for which abstracts are required in English and Romanian. The parameter “publication languages” shows a diminishing interest for Romanian, with only three journals still using it for article presentation, and three journals requiring an abstract in Romanian either with the article, or as an additional language for abstracts. French language articles are hosted by seven journals, while German is used in four journals and, surprisingly for the Romanian scientific tradition, Spanish appears as a possible language of publication in two journals, in a systematic way. One journal lists only the above-mentioned major languages as possibilities but publishes also in Italian. The linguistic choices are not debated/argued for or against, as if the issue is invisible [15], with one notable exception: Ekphrasis, serving as a venue for research in film and cultural studies. The editors make a point of specifying that the articles published in the journal should use English and other European languages to maintain multiculturalism and interdisciplinarity, commenting that “we encourage authors to use English as contemporary lingua franca of research while considering multilingual expression a European trait. All articles must have exclusively English-language abstracts, key words, and affiliation of the author”. At this point of research, with eight cities hosting all the 22 journals, a finer-grained analysis is required.

3.2. Monolingual or Bi-/Multilingual? Scientific Journals and Linguistic Preferences by Historical Regions

The national capital, Bucharest, with the numerous universities, research centers, major donors, and opportunities for employment of university graduates, is a special case, being branded as center versus the rest of Romanian cities. The linguistic traditions, in public life and in science, differ region by region. We tried to identify the pattern governing linguistic preferences by region, keeping in mind also the fact that while Hungarian and German are minority languages in Romania, German is also a language of upper culture for the whole country. Figure 1 below sums up the results.

The one journal in Dobrogea is a newcomer: established in December 2019, it rapidly gained indexations and still practices the “catch-all” policy, inviting submissions from the broad SSH area. The proportion of multilingual journals is highlighted by Figure 2 below.

Our initial hypothesis, that multicultural regions with academic traditions (Transylvania–Banat) would favor multilingual journals with English plus other modern languages, is validated. While Dobrogea is also considered a multilingual region, it started a regular academic life in the form of a comprehensive university relatively recently, in 1990 (prior to that, a pedagogical institute functioned, established in 1961). The journal followed the mainstream trend of English as a lingua franca. None of the journals, however, propose linguistic services to potential authors. At best, submitting authors are advised to ask a colleague fluent in English or a native speaker to proofread the text of the article, a result which resonates with the remarks by Laura Muresan and Carmen Pérez-Llantada [31] on the role of English among social sciences scholars in Romania, writing in bi- or multiliterate environments. Their survey on Romanian academics’ choice of languages for research communication points to the need for quality language services, such as language advisors and qualified translators, to aid researchers in their efforts to make scientific outputs available internationally [31], where native speakers of English are perceived as having an advantage over the non-native scholars [16,31].

3.3. Poles of Science

Despite the promise to deal with communication science topics, 22 Romanian journals are too many given the size of the field of communication science in Romania. By eliminating the “catch-all” journals, only eight titles remain in focus (number 1, 2, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, and 21 in Table 1), aiming at the advancement of communication sciences, grouped in two major cities: the national capital and Cluj-Napoca, the historical capital of the Transylvania region, as seen in Figure 3 below.

In looking deeper for the motivation behind the number of journals focused on communication sciences, some features become salient: these two cities are the only ones with doctoral study schools in communication sciences [30] and the orientation towards enhancing the quality of the journals is obvious. Each city has one journal indexed in Web of Science (ESCI), Bucharest also having the only Scopus-indexed journal. The bar is raised higher: the recent evaluation process of journals in arts and humanities reinforced the criteria a journal needs to meet to improve its status in the national territory and to obtain the much sought-after impact factor [35]. Whether the language status will consecrate English as a lingua franca in SSH or a multilingual policy will continue and flourish depends not only on domestic factors. A more energetic intervention by the European Union towards fostering linguistic diversity in science may counterbalance the trend towards a monolingual (English) publication world. At this point, no such signs are visible [15] and the Transylvanian multilingualism, at least, is a result of the multilingual model of instruction. Otherwise, Romanians in an overwhelming number study English as their first additional language of choice, considering it most useful for personal use and career advancement [31], in academic life included, since the internationalization of Romanian higher education is accompanied by opening study lines in English at all levels of instruction [36].

4. Conclusions and Further Directions of Research

The findings presented in this study need further deepening, to investigate, for instance, the actual presence of languages other than English, French, and German in communication journals. The current tendency encountered in the journals is to strive towards higher quality, signaled by indexation in the top databases, a narrowing of the scientific area covered, and an interest in attracting foreign authors. However, until a clear image of the scientific landscape was available, deepening the analysis was not possible. Romanian journals strive to enhance their influence globally and overcome the periphery handicap, signaled by researchers interested in the larger image of the publishing world [16]. In doing so, they focus on the immediate requirements posed by the prestigious databases and by the national standards for recognition of scientific merit [27,35]. Romanian communication science journals follow the trend of participating in the scientific dialogue mainly by resorting to English to promote scientific output. The national language is not favored and the invisibility of the interest in multilingualism that researchers in the topic identified as specific for the European Union [15] extends over Romania too.

The findings also have practical and policy implications. Editors of scientific journals can encompass the domestic area in which they function and compare it with the international standards they strive for, authors can improve their decision-making process concerning the venue of their research output, and national bodies in charge of higher education and research can root their choices in these data. Also, editors can improve the presentation of the journals on their respective websites and add a better description of the journal’s goals and scope, to make it more user-friendly. Hopefully, this research has also drawn attention to the communication sciences area as a domain in its own right, despite the ambiguity perpetuated by integrating this area with arts and humanities, as distinct from social sciences (alongside sociology, information sciences, and administrative studies) [13]. To conclude, the defining feature of the coming years will be the accelerating pace of incorporating quality criteria for improving the status of scientific journals, proven by impact factors calculated by WoS and Scopus, which will require an extra effort on the part of the publishers, while the choice of languages will depend on the macropolitical decisions at the European Union level, on funding and partnerships, and on the continuing optimism and selflessness of researchers championing multicultural exchanges of ideas.