How To Break The Hegemony Of English In Scientific Research

by Farhan
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Researchers from languages other than English were the authors of nearly 84 percent of research publications in Ibero-American countries. The Spanish language was only used by 13% of scientists in Spain. The second largest group is found in Mexico, followed by Chile, followed by Argentina, Colombia, and Peru with around 20%. Only 3% of Portuguese-speaking researchers published papers in their language. Comparatively, Brazilian scientists account for 12%. English was used for all other publications.

The use of German, French, and Russian in scientific publications. This is a similar problem to those previously common. These languages made up less than 1% of scientific papers, reviews, or academic conferences in 2020.

Today, scientific knowledge is completely produced and disseminated in English. It is the fact that English is the only language used to publish science.

How To Break The Hegemony Of English

Badillo, of Salamanca University’s Department of Sociology and Communications. Report’s purpose is to prevent language barriers from preventing access to knowledge. All members of society should be able to access this knowledge, and internationalizing science should not be at a cost to society. Diversity should be promoted without hindering the development of networks. Investing in private companies or the quality of findings in science.

Geopolitics and science are involved in this situation. In the Ibero-American continent, private industries are dominated by Anglo-Saxons. The research is funded by states, but the knowledge is created by us. 

  • You can give it away to large journals
  • By doing so, we donate the findings of our research

To access these publications, the national science systems are charged an astounding amount. The science that is funded by public taxes, however, is inaccessible to most citizens. Publishing outlets that provide it only charge readers for content written in another language.

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In other words, it means thinking in terms of cultural representations. Regional economic development is influenced by shared access to knowledge.

Factor of English language

The English language is ruled by three factors. The study’s authors referred to it that way. Let’s take inertia for example: 

  • In the aftermath of World War II
  • Science no longer uses German
  • The French were before the Germans
  • French came after Latin. 

Historically, the best science has been written in English, according to most people. Thus, scientists who are not writing in that language create an erroneous perception that their findings are less credible. There is a sort of separation going on here.

The scientific community in Ibero-American countries tends to interact with international researchers by publishing papers in English. However, there are also status reasons. When scientists publish in English instead of in their native language, they believe that. Some journals will not be accessible to them. The researchers can join the incentive system and climb the rungs in their work with these types of credentials.

Secondly, there is an incentive system. By citing impact, you can evaluate a journal’s quality. Content relevance and novelty are not a criterion. English-language journals are the most widely cited.

Elsevier and Clarivate Analytics

There are three reasons, and the third one determines the other two. Elsevier and Clarivate Analytics are the two biggest companies in the industry. Therefore, science evaluation has become privatized. For decades, they have produced international indexes of journals’ impact factors which favor English.

Furthermore, scientists in the United States typically speak English only, and this has become more prevalent in recent decades. To publish my research in US universities, I need to get people to read it. English is my native language, so I must write in it.

There are many consequences. Knowledge is limited due to the language barrier. Communication systems are not the only thing that languages do, they also construct the world around us. My world is limited by the limits of my language.

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The English language will remain dominant in science if we allow it. It is possible in a few years that Spanish and Portuguese will no longer be relevant for expressing scientific knowledge. Over the next 50 years, this situation is expected to remain unchanged. The language of science gets consolidated as English.

A move towards open science is the solution proposed by the OEI and Real Instituto Elcano. A movement aimed at collecting and disseminating scientific research. For too long, science has been bureaucratized in the ivory tower. Become more involved in the community. Providing tools for a paradigm shift. We should be able to ensure access to science through artificial intelligence and automatic translation.

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