Humanities in the European Union: Publication Strategies of Humanities Researchers 1992-2012

In the present paper, we analyze the publication strategies of researchers in the humanities, including their choices of language, publication type and co-authorship. Based on data from Denmark, we compare the publication profile of the humanities with the other major fields of science in 2012 and analyze changes in publication strategies within the humanities between 1992 and 2012. We show that the publication strategies of humanities (and social science) researchers differ systematically from the publication strategies of researchers in the medical sciences, natural sciences and engineering. We also show that while the publication strategies of humanities researchers have been relatively stable around the turn of the millennium, English has replaced Danish as the preferred language. We consider various causal mechanisms that have shaped the linguistic strategies of humanities researchers. While disciplinary variations in publication strategies can be explained by the censorship of the individual disciplines and their audience structures, an explanation of the general increase in the use of English language has to be sought outside the field of humanities. We argue that the specific conjuncture of the European Union’s internationalization policies in the 1990s and 2000s and a change in the international scientific hierarchy during the 20th century has contributed to the universalization of English in the Danish (and European) scientific field.