English-medium journals in Serbia: editors' perspectives

This chapter examines the growing phenomenon of English-medium journals in non-Anglophone countries, few of which achieve considerable international visibility as measured by inclusion in SCI and SSCI lists. The study investigates this phenomenon in Serbia, where a similar rise in English-medium journals is taking place, by exploring the views of editors of English-medium journals published in Serbia. Editors have been chosen as informants for the study because of their influential position as shapers of the practices and policies of the journals they edit and because of their privileged access to journal-related information that is not publicly available. The participants were fifteen editors of English-medium journals in Serbia in a range of disciplines. In addition to gathering bibliometric data about the participants’ journals, face-to-face interviews were conducted with five editors, and ten editors responded to a list of open-ended questions by email. This chapter reports and discusses two major themes: (i) the editors’ perspectives on the motivations behind the journals’ adoption of English and their related goals enabled by the use of English, and (ii) the editors views on the nature of their journals vis-à-vis the national/international dichotomy. It is shown that English-medium journals in Serbia constitute a diverse category, with different histories, goals and practices related to the use of English. Editors’ perspectives show that the use of English as the medium of publication is motivated by a range of goals at different levels, from local institutional goals to goals related to international exchange, as well as by both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors. In terms of the nature of English-medium journals on the semiperiphery, it is argued that they should be understood as a translocal phenomenon due to the knowledge flows they enable between various local contexts as well as with higher-than-local levels. The chapter closes by discussing the implications of the findings about the roles English-medium journals play in the local academic community, on the semiperiphery, and in global academic publishing