Citation in global academic knowledge making: A paired text history methodology for studying citation practices in English and Russian

Journal of English for Research Publication Purposes (Великобритания). 2022. Vol. 3. No. 1. P. 78–108.

Smirnova N. V., Lillis T. M.

This paper introduces a paired text history methodology to explore the citation practices of three experienced Russian scholars in philosophy, sociology, and economics. The empirical focus is on the analysis of three paired text histories, comparing Russian-medium research articles with English-medium research articles in each discipline. By analyzing the paired text histories through the use of multiple data sources—article drafts, email correspondence surrounding text production, and interviews—focusing specifically on the changes made to citations in each pair, the paper seeks to throw light on both micro and macro level knowledge production practices. At the micro level, the paper analyses changes made to citations across English and Russian-medium texts, documenting the involvement of literacy brokers, their evaluative requests about citations, and authors’ responses to such requests. At the macro level, the paper raises questions about what counts as ‘citeworthy’ in different geolinguistic contexts and considers the consequences of citation brokering and citation practices for knowledge production and circulation globally.

Keywords: российские ученые, научное письмо, научная статья, multilingual scholars, геолингвистика, academic writing in a foreign language (English), академическое письмо на английском языке, knowledge production, research writing, research article, linguistic ethnography, text histories, russian academia, russian scholars, citaton practices, geopolitics of writing for publication, geolingustics, лингвистическая этнография, анализ историй текста, практики цитирования, геополитика научного письма