The following is a summary of my recent article “On the conditions of authority in academic publics” in 14 tweets. The paper was published in the Journal of Sociolinguistics; an open-access pre-print version is available here.
Q: What makes a #text credible, trustworthy and authoritative?
Many people think it's the quality of #discourse: that some ways of using #language make text more believable
Certainly true BUT: world leaders may talk complete nonsense and still command authority and get elected pic.twitter.com/zTsgJcvD0A
— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) December 16, 2019
Some of the pre-textual resources that give #authority to #discourse are listed by Smith-Khan (2019)
1. Linguistic capital
2. Material resources
3. Identity privilege
4. Platform privilegehttps://t.co/DMS2IAXmMb pic.twitter.com/8yxn8hknVc— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) December 16, 2019
2. Material resources: if you bring your text to market on a well-designed website with stable URL, it is accorded greater #credibility than a handwritten note on a torn piece of paper
(Examples from Smith-Khan, 2019) pic.twitter.com/3nGGZbQXZs
— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) December 16, 2019
4. Platform privilege: look no further than #Twitter: number of followers and retweets are widely considered markers of #authority …
— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) December 16, 2019
Citation rates serve as a measure of #academic #authority
Irrespective how groundbreaking and innovative the #research, publications in #languages other than #English attract few citations#English = #authority (research)https://t.co/6pOAjeVHda
— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) December 16, 2019
Same is true of #white scholars: they are more likely to be cited and accorded #authority#race #research #AcademicTwitter https://t.co/qIBG7Kb7FA
— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) December 16, 2019
"When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are #free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some #power, then your job is to #empower somebody else." (Toni Morrison)#academia #research pic.twitter.com/aUISjtXJqK
— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) December 16, 2019
Special thanks to @fonolog @Neerlandistiek, who blogged this paper almost immediately when it was published.
What a generous #authority boost! 🤗 Hartelijk bedankt!https://t.co/0tpTe4uVLU
— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) December 16, 2019
This work is licensed under a
This thread really demonstrates how authority impacts our perception of academic publications. I often don’t consciously think about the pre-textual resources, but if I was presented with two academic sources with an equally convincing argument, I would choose the source that was published on a larger platform, which is more likely to have higher citation rates. This is also the case in our daily lives as we come across content on different social media sites. For example, a post with the exact same view on Twitter from two different accounts can have very different interaction rates due to one of the accounts having more followers which leads to a greater reach. I think what this teaches us is that we need to be aware of these pre-textual resources that Smith-Khan mentions in order to not fall into their trap.
Hi Ingrid, I highly appreciate this post, especially the point that “authority comes to language from outside”. The current world has persuaded that it is an era for equality, freedom of speech and professionalism; however, the contrasts have been always present. In Vietnamese context, a majority of people and youngsters tend to seek and uphold viewpoints from entertainment artists because they demonstrate a high degree of identity privilege and linguistic sophistication. I made the same guilt in fantasying my singer idol and associating everything she said as valuable inputs. However, there was an occasion that she criticized the journalism why asking her questions of other expertise fields and said she is only competent in singing, not in agriculture or urban planning. Disregard of content value, language is restricted to authority in terms of superficial attributes. Attention-grabbing and polished words will be more likely to be liked and shared on social media platforms, so misinformation coul be spread easily and considered as general facts.
Thank you, Jolie! The influence of celebrities over politics and social life more broadly is profoundly disturbing …
Hi Jolie
I really agree with and am also mortified of the authority people automatically give celebrities, professional sports players and social media influencers, regardless of their knowledge, experience or education. This tends to compound the problem, as actual voices of authority and wisdom, with relevant expertise, get drowned out by the glitz and flash of celebrity. So many people in our world cannot distinguish between credible sources of information and headline grabbing, attention seeking drivel. Unfortunately this privilege also allows these people to gain positions of power they have no qualifications for where they can do severe damage on a global level. It’s a strange world we live in!
To make a text or discourse, especially the academic one, credible, it requires a few steps, such as planning, drafting, and revision. Regardless the gender and race, everyone with this capability should be able to create a great academic text. However, some people still idolize the identity of the writer, and sometimes shifting their focus attention from the content of the text or discourse itself. This reminds me of my teacher in English language course in Indonesia. She is a great teacher, however, when I told my friends her name, they laughed at it because it sounds very “Indonesian”, despite no correlation between name (identity) and credibility as teacher.
Thanks, Natalia! Credibility is not something that is inherent in the speaker (or writer, or teacher) but that is bestowed by others. When a teacher with an Indonesian name is not taken seriously, an invalid indicator is used to assess their credibility rather than a valid one (such as a teaching qualification, professional expertise, etc.)
Hello Ingrid,
Thank you for this fascinating article. Given that we are all living in an “infodemic”, also due to the impact of social media on our lives, it is vital to develop good critical skills which might help us discern between good quality, reliable information and fake/misleading information. I agree that the perception of authority may change for each individual and might be biased by the platform used to divulge the information, famousness of the person, gender etc. However, I must admit that it came to me a bit as a shock to learn that even in the world of academia, variables such as the gender of the author or the language of the articles have such a significant effect on their perceived authority. Breakthrough in knowledge should carry the same importance without having it decreased e.g. by the gender of the writer or the language.
Thanks emme effe! You might be interested to read my annual International Women’s Day posts, which mostly deal with the erasure of academic women.
Why are there so few notable women?
Why do female academic publish less than their male peers?
Remembering cancelled women
Female academics and shamans face the same glass ceiling
Strange academic women
Thanks Ingrid
These look really exciting. I look forward to reading them once assignments are done.
Hi Emme
I agree it is shocking that gender, race and language are significant factors in perceived authority of academic work as well as many other types of work. I dream of a utopian world where people have the equal opportunity for recognition and merit of their work, not based on their identity, gender, heritage, age, colour or language. One day…..
It is unnerving to see how hegemony continually finds new ways to maintain its position. Just as increasing numbers of people from previously-excluded identities have access to education, new ways are found the limit their ability to accrue the social capital that is supposed to flow to the educated.
In the context of the globalisation of academia, and to counter the negative effects of the control of academic authority into the hands of a few English-speaking, global North institutions, perhaps it is time for universities to seriously examine – and teach- what constitutes excellent scholarship from a multitude of cultural perspectives.
In the era of fast growing social media, in Vietnam, there have been numerous public figures including actors, models, singers and vloggers, etc., whose statements, actions greatly attracts attention of the general public. Even their advertisement posts on Facebook, which are not relevant to their profession (e.g. nutrition, financial analysis, psychology), also successfully persuade the Vietnamese online community. Contrastingly, those with specialised/expert knowledge and little fame (e.g. experienced investor, nutritionist) receive less consultation and have limited influence to the public. The authority here has been misjudged, consequently, take for instance of crypto investment, lots of people heavily capitalised into a trash coin, which was widely introduced by celebrities abut disapproved by the domain experts, then went bankrupt/in-debt. Although the Internet provide us huge sources of information, yet, we need to have knowledge and critical thinking to evaluate the authority and credibility of them.
Thanks, Tammy! As Jay just said below, we all suffer from an infodemic!
This thread is an interesting method to discuss the respective topic. I really believe that the communication and information must be linked to an authorised source or it loses its complete worth. In addition to that it can be a harm to the social trust.
For example, In Pakistan, disinformation has increased in recent years as a large part of the population is not digitally literate, making them vulnerable to various types of online and digital propaganda. Pakistan has been hit by infodemic more than the pandemic. Some of the example are,
‘Immediate Ban on Poultry’, ‘Do not Eat Chicken!’, ‘You should eat leaves of the senna plant or sana makki’ (patients ended up in hospital emergency rooms with severe diarrhoea because ‘sana makki’ is a strong laxative). These examples clearly show that an information can misused without any authoritative measures.
Thanks, Jay! Pakistan is not alone in this; in Australia and the US, people were apparently hospitalized for over-dosing on Ivermectin, a medication to deworm horses but believed to be a miracle cure of COVID by some …
Globally, the respected types of English are from British, American, and Australian, says Sender Dovchin(a sociolinguist). On an international level, I have observed many speakers face judgements based on perceptions about their race rather than their actual communication skills. English, when expressed by Americans or Australians sound more sophisticated and stylish. In contrast, English communicated by Asians or Africans is seen as unpleasant and challenging to understand even though we learn English as L1 or L2. These perceptions feed into linguistic racism or racism based on accent, dialect, and speech patterns. This Linguistic racism leads to many non-native speakers becoming embarrassed/ excluded because of their language developing inferiority complexes and start to believe that they’re less intelligent. Many multilingual students’ report being fairly confident in their English-language skills in their home country, but then losing their confidence due to the way they’re treated in English countries.
Thank you, Fathima! You might be interested to learn that we explore precisely these topics in another class I teach, APPL8030 Languages and cultures in contact – maybe I’ll see you there next year? 🙂
In the meantime, you can get a little taster here:
Hi Ingrid
Great news your’e teaching this class. It’s on my must do list for next year. Any idea yet which semester it will be offered?
2nd semester 🙂
I have been in Australia long enough to be considered a native speaker and for a long time wanted to turn to teaching English but hesitated due to my fear of not being taken seriously as I look Asian. I certainly work harder to seem wordy and knowledgeable.
I think bias based on linguistic capital and identity can also occur when engaging a professional such as a lawyer and a doctor. In regard to material resources, a business with a website commands more credibility, and these days, if payment options do not contain PayPal and the like, it loses credibility for me.
Thanks, Thao! Your PayPal example is a useful reminder that we really should approach knowledge more critically. In the same way we are rightly suspicious of financial fraud, we should also be on the look-out for “knowledge fraud.” I’m thinking of the many mis- and disinformation campaigns in the context of the pandemic, and the harm they are doing not only to public health but to social trust.
Hi Ingrid,
Thanks for sharing an interesting topic. Regarding your encounter with the surprisingly incredible ‘Vernacular Palaver’ book mentioned in your journal, I experienced a similar situation as well. I worked as an English teacher for three years in Vietnam. During that time, I continuously looked for different English teaching textbooks to improve my teaching skills. I realized that the linguistic capital had given me the impression of good textbooks can only be composed by native authors. However, I changed my mind when I found one textbook written by a Korean author since he brought many new perspectives towards the English teaching and learning process, which unpacked meaningful tips for English teachers in a non-English-speaking country. The impression we assign to different people, which is created by pre-textual resources, like linguistic capital, will sometimes give unfair judgement. Thus, this removes the objectivity from our perspectives in the academic context.
Thanks, Zoe, for this interesting example! Can you share the reference, please?
I would love to share the book with you and others, but I only came across this book when researching in my university’s library in Vietnam. I only noted down some key findings for practical implications in my class. I always regret not trying to get a copy of that book for myself, so I can discover more about it. The only thing I can remember was the author’s background (I can’t even remember his name) and the book was about teaching and learning IELTS. I tried to find it several times, but no luck. I’m still searching for this book and if I happen to find it, I will definitely share it with you and everyone here. Thank you.
Thank you, Zoe! Such a good reminder why referencing is so important. I’m sure this experience taught you to always add the source to your notes 🙂
Thanks for your suggestion, Ingrid. I totally agree with the importance of referencing in keeping important information. This experience has significantly changed my perspective on referencing ever since.
I think academic authority comes from the level of professionalism of scholars, as well as the authenticity of written materials, and the degree and academic relevance of different discourses. When the text is closely integrated with professional knowledge and logical thinking, I think its academic authority is very high. In our daily life, the most common is the difference between trainee teachers and formal teachers. Students generally don’t approve the academic authority of intern teachers. They think that their academic knowledge is not sufficient and their ability to answer questions is limited. In this case, we can see that academic authority comes from the status and position of the character. However, people with high academic qualifications or positions may not necessarily have enough academic authority. We need to break the inherent concept to treat academic authority without prejudice.
This article reminds me of the “identity privilege” of native teachers when teaching English in Vietnam. In public schools, the majority of English teachers are non-native speakers, meanwhile in private schools or extra-curricular commercial institutions, teachers are preferably from English-speaking countries. The fact that formal instructions in public schools primarily focus on grammatical knowledge while communicative activity is marginalized due to exam-oriented teaching syllabus. Once parents place more emphasis on their children’ s communicative competence, they prefer sending their kids to private school or extra curriculum classes with the hope that foreign teachers would provide more exposure to authentic English. As a result, teachers being “native” or “native-like” has been given priority. Meanwhile non-native teachers are less likely to draw much attention and simultaneously their income tends to be less decent compared to that of foreign teachers.
Thanks, Megan! This kind of identity privilege creates a vicious circle where native-speakers are perceived as “better teachers” and, as a result, the private schools where they teach come to be perceived as better (the same is true of communicative language teaching as a method) and get to charge higher fees, which enables them to invest more in marketing (including further promoting the language ideology that “native speaking teachers are best”), and so on …
Thanks, Ingird! That is the reason why public schools can hardly afford to pay for foreign teachers. I think both native and non-native teachers offer distinct potentialities and limitations and they deserve to be paid equally.
Absolutely! In fact, by and large, so-called non-native teachers are better qualified than their native-speaker counterparts …
Btw, do you have star teachers in Vietnam, like they do in Taiwan? https://www.languageonthemove.com/english-teaching-superstars/
Hi Ingrid,
This is the first time I have ever heard of “star teachers”, it sounds absolutely intriguing! In Vietnam, qualified and dedicated teachers would be invited to become either a host of a guest of educational programs, which exerts a positive influence on English teacher community in my country.
Thank you for showing me this interesting information!
Thanks for this insight Megan. As a native-English speaker I am always aware of my limitations as a teacher of English. For me, the pedagogical price of automaticity is cluelessness! What comes out of my mouth may be grammatically correct but I have no idea how or why, let alone have skill in explaining difficult grammar points to learners. Trying to analyse texts in grammatical terms literally makes my head hurt.
Teachers who have learned English as an additional language are also more able to notice the quirks of the language and cultural nuances that only a fresh pair of ears can hear.
Thank you for sharing your opinion, Ingrid!
It might be true that some L2 students tend to feel more comfortable and scaffolded when listening to grammatical instructions in their home languages. This possibly because the inconsistence between L1 and L2, which could be ideally explained through contrastive analysis. Thus, teachers can flexibly code-switch between L1 and L2 to make sure their students are not left behind.
Having said that, it goes without saying that foreign teachers provide more authentic and native-like input, which is beneficial for students to improve their communicative competence.
Thanks for this interesting insight Meghan.
I truly believe that non-native teachers are better qualified to teach some areas of language than native speakers – like grammar. I am a shockingly, bad grammar teacher, which is a running joke in all my classes. I don’t even pretend to know how to teach grammar. I do my best designing lessons and teaching grammar in context. My best teaching experience was in Kyoto, Japan. In my school, Japanese teachers taught English grammar and vocabulary while native English speaking teachers taught conversation, pronunciation, cultural topics etc. This was a really effective and practical solution and we all worked well as a team. Maybe we can do that together one day.
Hi Ally,
The work division designed for native and non-native teachers in Japan sounds really viable and practical. Thank you for your sharing. Yes we should do this together one day!
Ingrid, I was deeply moved by your sections on gender identity and authority. The refugee known as Abyan, the African scholar Moradewun Adejunmobi and female economic academics all share one trait: despite being remarkable, their identities’, their work and their authority are devalued, overlooked and often dismissed because they are women. For centuries, the achievements of remarkable women have been largely MIA in history books, their work initially dismissed then later either lost or stolen by men who took credit for their achievements gaining prestige and authority. This bias is so common in science it has a name and is called the Matilda effect. I myself have experienced this often in my academic life, career and social life. As a middle-aged woman, who has lived as a cultural minority in different countries for over 25 years, I find my opinions, experience and work dismissed and devalued frequently. This is actually getting much worse as I age. Ageism seems to compound the challenges of gender identity further undermining women’s authority, in stark contrast to men and their work, often seen as getting wiser and gaining greater authority with age. In the 21st century it is a tragedy that it’s still often the norm for to women have to work harder and better, while getting paid less, in the same careers as men.
Thank you, Ally, for adding the important dimension of ageism! For women’s careers this is a double whammy: most of us fall back in our careers when we have children; and by the time some of us have clawed back a career (and may have more experience and be more capable than we ever were before), we discover that workplaces are geared towards shunting older women out …
Hi Ingrid
Yes indeed. Somehow in fairy tales, myths and religions many cultures celebrate wise, old men but women tragically become the old hag or wicked witch of the west. However, there were the three fairy godmothers….
Thank you for another insightful topic. I agree that many people lack the literacy skills to distinguish between real and fake news. This is so relevant during this pandemic as so much misinformation is shared through social media. Also, it is very disappointing that linguistic capital, material resources, identity privilege and platform privilege can diminish or undermine an individuals ability to present a credible text, as seen in the example of the case between the minister and the Somalian refugee. The minister was a well-known public figure and a native speaker of English compared to the refugee who had low proficiency in the language and was an unknown figure, which shows how individuals with an established identity and institutional authority are more likely to be credible, while individuals without authority lack credibility.
I agree totally, Odette. Further, those same privileges are seen as giving him the right to politicise a deeply personal experience, potentially multiplying her trauma.
I think Smith-Khan (2019)’s list is very suitable to represent many people’s opinions of the authority of a text and it is able to explain some phenomenon that people judge the authority of the materials. However, some situations in real life could be complicated. Some short videos on the big and well-known platform could transmit rumours and they are easy to be trusted by the vivid scenes made by some high techniques. The advertisers also utilize high techniques and the influence of famous people to overstate the function of the product. For a multimodal text, the truthness of it is affected by many factors embodied in the text which makes it more difficult to judge. Therefore, it is important to keep a critical mind to evaluate the text without being fooled by the false illusion.
What makes a text credible, more trustworthy, and authoritative? I think it is identity privilege, despite gender, someone’s career or famousness can affect the authority to discourse. Generally, not everyone can evaluate information critically. Many people tend to trust whatever famous people or celebrities talk or write without enough consideration or evaluation about the degree of truth. Information given by an ordinary person is less concerned with compared to famous people. Anything posted by famous people on social media is immediately got thousands of views, likes, comments, and shares. Also, anything negative happened between a famous person and an unfamous one, the public tends to be toward famous people at first. Although not everyone also put their trust on famous people, identity privilege can be a maker of the authority of discourse.
Thank you, Jenny, for this succinct summary!
Pre-textual resources sometimes come with companions. Like in an English debate event, the audience may prone to vote for people who are more likely to have a so-called native accent, even though these debaters failed to testify to their standpoint. Or another debater who exemplified an experiment conducted by a famous university may get many supporters, although this example or the result of the experiments does not back up their point reasonably. Together, a debater who speaks British or American alike English and used an example from an international university regardless of its compatibility with the debating case, this debater is more likely to earn votes.
Probably, we sometimes should be more critical rather than parroting whatever others say, and the authority should be somewhat critically analyzed and contextualized.
Thanks, Anka! How the identity of the speaker rather than the content of what is said create authority and credibility can be quite depressing …
Thanks for sharing the brilliant topic. I found an interesting phenomenon amongst middle-aged Chinese women; they are keen to share links and articles with their friends and family members in WeChat. Frankly, they trust the platform whatever the information is given. It is an example of platform privilege increases people’s academic authority. Unfortunately, WeChat doesn’t have any references so that it would increase bias and mislead people. For example, I received an article from my parents in WeChat saying that spreading vinegar in your home can kill bacteria and virtues. It is ridiculous but my parents thought it is a piece of useful advice. In doing so, it indeed challenged two generations’ conversation because of the fake news.
Thanks, Milly! Misinformation spreading through social media is such a huge challenge! Many people seem to lack the critical literacy needed to distinguish between truth and fake. As Tom Nichols says in The death of expertise, “These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had access to so much knowledge, and yet been so resistant to learning anything.”
On a side note: white distilled vinegar is a great natural cleaner (not a disinfectant, though) 🙂