‘English is my default academic language’: Voices from LSP scholars publishing in a multilingual journal

•English-medium publishing is a bonus for tenure and academic promotion.•Attitudes to the pre-eminence of English for academic publishing are ambivalent.•ERPP sustains the self-perpetuating cycle of English as the language of science.•Both Anglophone and non-Anglophone researchers benefit from multilingual journals.•Multilingual journals protect national languages as well as English.

This paper investigates research publication practices in the field of Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) and aims to raise awareness of the current use of English by LSP scholars (Anglophones and non-Anglophones) who need to gain visibility in international academia and recognition in their home educational contexts. This article draws on the JCR-indexed LSP journal Ibérica and the submissions from a group of Anglophone and non-Anglophone scholars who have contributed to the journal with English-written articles despite the fact that Ibérica is a multilingual journal, encourages submissions in four other languages, and assesses all manuscripts on an equal basis regardless of submission language. In order to broach the “publish in English or perish in academia” dilemma through the eyes of this particular journal the replies from a five-item questionnaire delivered online are illustrated and discussed. Answers provided by 161 respondents support many of the statements already explored in the literature (particularly as regards threats and opportunities of English as a common language in academia) but also bring to the fore new views and concerns which are worth investigating in depth.