World Englishes: Changing the Paradigm of Linguistic Diversity in Global Academia

This paper discusses the ways that the publications of multilingual and non-native speakers of English are treated in academic publications. Using the World Englishes theory as a framework, it attempts to enumerate which overt and hidden advantages native speakers may have over non-native speakers in academic writing communities, and how these can be deconstructed. It also explores possible solutions to this problem, both to improve non-native students' written scholarly work and to restructure global perceptions and biases towards different regional varieties of English. The paper focuses on certain gate-keeping behaviors performed by institutions of knowledge production, and on how the World Englishes theory can be applied to help improve parity in international academia.