english language writing/publishing policies in national documents and university bylaws in iran

Over the last few decades, academic publishing has played a significant role in the professional lives of academics all over the world. considering the climate of internationalization in higher education systems, universities around the world formulate academic writing and publishing policies which help them obtain better positions in research productivity in global ranking systems. to explore the complexity of such trends in iran with regard to the language of publications, this research investigates the existing policies of writing and publishing in english officially stated in related national documents as well as university bylaws in the iranian higher education system. we examined 30 national policy documents published by the ministry of science, research and technology and 170 university bylaws released by 46 iranian universities over the past twenty-five years based on qualitative content analysis. all documents were coded for policy lines related to academic writing and publishing in english and the patterns of codes were organized as (sub) categories. the emerging categories reveal that in the iranian higher education system, academics are pushed towards writing and publishing in english by (1) assigning higher points in quantitative scoring of research products, (2) dedicating higher cash bonus to research outcomes published by international publishers (in english), (3) including requirements for publishing in english in recruitment and promotion processes, and (4) promising academics reputation and prestige in their profession. this study can show how policies in higher education systems can lead to the continued neocolonial dominance of english in academia. this research will also be valuable in terms of informing policy makers and academics about the importance of critical language awareness and the potential challenges that can be posed for the status of the persian language.