do developing countries contribute to the scientific community

Great Debates
21

I forgot to add that translations cost money, which developping countries simply don’t have to put in their universities.

And reading the post of dantheman: Don’t you find it extremely unjust and rude that a student or a scientist has to go through such a time consuming, painful and risky procedure in order to get publication of his work?

The whole fashion to publish everything possible in “English only” is extremely condenscending towards other languaged people to begin with. And contributing in a very high amount to the difficulties of students and scientists worldwide.
It is once again the brutal imposing of the capitalistic norm onto countries and people who already must overcome the greatest difficulties to survive. Let be to be able to compete. In no matter which field.

22

This is sadly true, but in our organization the author doesn’t have to pay anything unless his paper is overlong (8 published pages). Up to 8 pages, there’s a “voluntary” charge. Some pay it, some don’t. No one has to, of course, and paying it or not paying it has zero effect on the publication of the paper.

Papers that are overlong (or have color artwork) do carry a charge, but these can and are waived at the editor’s discretion.

Now, because there’s not much of a charge, if any, regarding publication, there’s more money to be spent (ostensibly) on translation. But many times, the translator simply works for the same institution that the author works for and does it gratis or at a low rate. The author reciprocates by acknowledging the translator in the paper itself, as Eva Luna was.

Not at all. If I were publishing a paper in one of the myriad Russian scientific papers, I know it has to be in Russian. I could find someone to translate it for me if I had no Russian knowledge, or attempt it myself. But I would certainly realize that the paper would never be published in English in a Russian publication.

The same holds for American scientific journals. Although the papers are read by an international audience, the publication itself is in English, and all papers must be translated before they are accepted. Apart from the fact that the journal is published in America, there’s the issue of the reviewers. A Chinese author may have his paper reviewed by a German and a Dutchman. The reviewers won’t be likely to know any Chinese, let alone enough to review a paper. They will, however, know English. (Our society deals with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of authors, and very, very few of our employees know any language other than English. English must be used if the author is to be published.)

Not at all. There are many countries that publish their own scientific journals, and there’s no shame in any author publishing in them. An Italian can publish in an Italian journal, a Russian in a Russian journal, and an Indian in an Indian journal. And so on.

“The Man” ain’t keepin’ no one down, scientifically.

23

“It is once again the brutal imposing of the capitalistic norm onto countries and people”

In any case what would be the imposing of cultural norms; but anyway, be fair Aldebaran, English, for good or bad has become the international language, as French used to be; Using a widespread language to publish scientific materials does in fact help to spread the knowledge. If every paper was published in the author´s own language things would get complicated, a publication with articles in English, French, Japanese, Russian, Chineese, Korean, Swahili, etc wouldn´t serve the scientific community too much., etc

24

You both have good arguments of course, but i see it through the eyes of students who not only have not much opportunities to make it to university in the first place.
Yet when they make it and can finish their study and can contribute finally to the developments in their studyfiels, they find themselves placed before this language barrier.

As for publicing in your “own” journals and other publications, of course that is done.
Yet: English languaged persons don’t read that and as the OP screams: English languaged persons even think nobody on the globe but people in so called “developped countries” (we leave out here a discussion on that terminology) contribute to anything worth reading let be considering innovative.

Of course I don’t have a clear cut solution. Yet I’m convinced that more respect for other languages by studying them would not only lead to “non English” publications gaining more public and attention in the richest country on the globe (where as is rightfully remarked the sources for scientific research are available even much more then in Europe) but would open a world of neglected treasors for the American and other Enlgish languaged people themselves. And not only for academics.

As for things getting complicated when a publication has contributions in different languages: :slight_smile: :slight_smile: from this one here.
And you should go attend some day a colloqium or congres in my studyfield where different languages are used by the speakers, one after an other. You just have to see you understand them. Personally I prefer that far above someone trying to gain and keep attention of the collegues in a type of “foreign English” that one can hardly follow.

Salaam. A

25

[slight hijack]

I’m just remembering a quite surreal conference I attended in 1995 on the indigenous peoples of Siberia, which was held at a children’s summer camp near Novosibirsk, Russia. It was in theory an international conference, but many Russian experts were unable to attend due to lack of funds from their institutions either for the registration fees (which were quite minimal), or for travel and lodging at the conference site. And needless to say, few non-Russians were keen on the idea of a trip to Siberia, even if it was summertime.

Then the camp director decided that since we were using his facilities, we should all be subjected to a dramatic/dance performance of the students, which involved a scantily clad 13-year-old Russian girl dancing the lambada and took up half the morning conference session. The result was that all the presenters were short on time. The worst off was one poor Hungarian anthropologist, an expert on shamanism among the peoples of eastern Siberia, who was forced to shorten his 30-minute talk to 5 minutes. But the hardest part was that once he realized that pretty much everyone at the conference except for him was a native Russian speaker, and that many had little ability with spoken English, he had to simultaneously translate his talk into Russian, which he didn’t really speak very well. He’d prepped it in English, since he assumed it was a truly international conference and that would be the most neutral language. Poor guy; he tried really hard, but after all that editing his talk didn’t make much sense. It was too bad, because his spoken English was nearly flawless; we talked to him afterward, and it turned out he’d spent a year as a visiting professor at my grad school.

26

The students who don’t even make it to university in all likelihood would never be published anyway, regardless of their country or language of origin.

Also, let’s not forget that most papers aren’t written by one author, they’re written by a team. Many times the team consists of three or four graduate students and one professor. The students are listed first (having done most of the work), and the professor, who has been published numerous times himself, lists himself last. He’s also usually the corresponding author.

The point here is just that often there isn’t one struggling student who can’t afford to be published. Often he or she teams with a group, and together their research can be published, especially if a tenured professor is on board.

I would tend to disagree, considering the wide variety of countries that our papers come from. They may be in English, but the people aren’t English-speaking natives.

Look at it this way. The standard measuring system used in academic and scientific publications is the metric system, not SI. The standard language is English. Neither of these two facts prohibit people from non-English countries from publishing or people who commonly use inches and feet from publishing.

People who don’t speak English aren’t being kept from publishing.

The only way something like this could work on a large-scale basis would be if everyone were equipped with Babel fish. Otherwise, you have too many people speaking too many languages, languages that will undoubtedly have syntactical discrepancies.

27

*Originally posted by monstro *

Even an immersion program? No, they’re not going to be perfectly fluent, but they can at least make themselves understood. As for the eight years, I was including undergraduate work.

Seems to me you gave the reason earlier in your post: yes, America is better equiped to give its students instruction in foreign langauges, but seeing as how American students already speak the lingua franca, it’s less imperative. Continuing the metric analogy, we expect American students to learn the metric system because it’s the international standard. If a foreign students is really interested in America, they might learn the English system, but there’s nothing odd about expecting American students to be much more familiar with the metric system than foreign students are with the English system.

28

Are you seriously comparing the ability to understand metric units (something most sixth graders know) with competency in a foreign language? Or am I just misunderstanding you?

I’ll tell you this right now; if Americans Ph.Ds had to be competent in Japanese in order to be successful, there wouldn’t be quite so many American Ph.Ds strutting around the place.

29

They’d still be doctors, monstro; they just wouldn’t be very successful in your scenario, unless the American institution of learning would be taught entirely in Japanese as well.

30

My point, dantheman, is that if Ph.Ds have to jump through another hoop to be successful, then the pool of dedicated students will be limited to those who can and are willing to jump through that hoop. Few people enter Ph.D programs just for the special title. They want to get a job after graduation.

I know that if I had to learn Japanese in order to be a successful marine biologist, I would probably consider another career. I’m terrible with foreign languages, you see.

I’m not saying the language barrier is the most important thing keeping people from poorer countries from doing science, but it certaintly is a barrier that Americans don’t have to face. And I think it’s absurd to compare learning how to convert inches into centimeters to learning how to speak/read/write in a foreign language.

31

It’s definitely a huge barrier that Americans don’t have to face. No argument there.

32

The fact that a whole group is working on an issue and the result is composed of their work is a generalisation. That is true in certain disciplines. Yet it isn’t in several others.

As for my argument that languages are important: they are in any case. My experience is that people who only speak one, get focussed on what is published in that one and thus get focussed on a narrowed view on their displine.
That is the more the case when they have the false idea that only things published in that one language are worth to be taken into account.

33

Are you comparing learining Japanese to learning English? Janpanese has three different alphabet systems.

I’m not comparing the metric system to learning English. The metric system was simply part of a larger analogy. To simplify: English is to other languages what the metric system is to other measuring systems.

34

Right, and if the Chinese author speaks only Chinese, he or she will have a narrow view of their own discipline. At least if they need to translate their work into the language of the publication in which they wish it to be published, they’re exposed at least a moderate amount to another language.

35

I don’t think that anyone ever actually made that assertion; you are reading your own biases into the OP. Several posters intimately involved in the world of publication have offered several insights which contradict your assertions.

OK…here’s where your argument falls apart. You seem to feel that the more-or-less universal language of English is “unjust” and “rude,” and “brutal imposing of the capitalistic norm.” And you then suggest that English speakers should respect and learn other languages.

So, are you against the idea of a single, “universal” * lingua franca* for scientific research, or are you just upset that it is English?

If you are in favor a universal language, what should it be? Latin? Aramaic? Chinese? Flemish? No matter which language you choose, won’t the same “student or scientist have to go through such time consuming, painful and risky procedure in order to get publication of his work?”

If you are against a universal publishing language, then the scenario you railed against (non-English speakers are denied access to results published in English/ English speakers denied access to papers published in indigenous languages) is multiplied many-fold; now *everyone * is cut off from everyone else, unless of course one is fluent in many languages.

As to the OP; I’m going to say that it is a trick question, for just the points that Aldebaran and Monstro have pointed out. A survey of the leading English-language journals would lead one to believe that the majority of leading scientific research is published primarily by “western” or “first-world” countries, with minimal contributions from the “Third world.” However, to answer this fairly, one would have to survey all scientific journals. Since, as ** Aldeberan and Monstro have pointed out most “western” scientists are mostly familiar only with English language journals and/or those published in their native tongue, their perceptions are ultimately biased.

36

I get your analogy, The Ryan. Your analogy is simple. The simplicity of your analogy is it’s flaw. The OP is asking why aren’t people from poorer countries represented in the sciences. One answer given was that not everyone can afford English lessons.

Everyone can afford a dictionary with a table of unit conversions.

Not being able to convert centimeters to inches will not keep you from understanding the seminal papers in your field.

I don’t see how your analogy applies to the OP at all.

English isn’t the main language of science because it’s easier to learn than Spanish or French or Italian–which it isn’t. If Japan suddenly became King Shit of the science world, there’s nothing stopping Japanese from being the new lingua franca. Three alphabet systems or not. Those who have all the power ($$)dictate what’s spoken.

37

Bizzwire,

I said that it would be better for everyone to study more then one language.

And yes, it would be better for everyone in the academic circles if publications were made in several languages who are considered to have an equal importancen, and that academics would learn these at least at the level of comprehensive reading.

That way people around the globe even when not having one of these as first language would at least be able to choose the language that is for them the most easy and most natural to write in.
Because it is not because you are good in comprehensive reading that you are able to write comprehensible.
I read English very well, almost as good as my other languages. Yet when it comes to write it, even on a board like this where the demand for writing skill is low, I need to consult a dictionary quite regularly and I continiously am handicapped by problems of grammar, spelling and most of all: vocabulary and the problem to construct fluent, readable sentences.
That has of course also to do with my dyslexia, but much more with my inability to write in a language I don’t master well enough to express myself and what I want to bring across clearly and understandable.

By the way: Your focus on me having something against English has no foundation. I do have something against those born into the language who take it for granted that everyone uses it to make it easy for them and are even so dumb to declare that everyone has to learn it . Some even add to that the arrogance to declare that people who don’t know English are some kind of retarded cave men.
Further some of them are that arrogant to claim that every foreigner must on top of this be able to write as flawless and fluent as they do.

And yes, all of this makes me laugh because I can’t prevent myself from thinking: I wonder how they would manage if the same requirements were imposed on them.

Salaam. A.

38

Monstro

You are right, sort of. As other have pointed out, most countries with an active scientific community publish journals in their own language. Thus, the journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry is published in English. Angewandte Chemie, published in Germany is published in German, of course, and Kagaku, published in Tokyo, is published in Japanese.

Because scientific research requires money and an advanced infrastructure, those countries with the greatest economic strength have the most robust scientific communities and do the most cutting-edge research. Thus, their journals are the most widely read and most prestigious. So your thesis is correct; If Japan or the Philippines was kicking ass and taking names (in a purely scientific sense, mind you), There would be a lot of undergrads suddenly studying Japanese (or Tagalog).

There’s nothing particularly nefarious about it.

I would also like to point out that those who only speak English are not cut off from research done and published in other countries/languages. The larger abstracting services offer English abstracts of a lot of foreign journals. If a particular article looks important enough, One can order the article and have it translated.

39

Aldeberan, you said a lot more than “it would be better for everyone to study more then one language.” However in the interests of preventing this from devolving into a pissing match, I’ll cede you the point. Everyone should learn more than one language. Absolutely.

40

Hell, I’ll go further to add that the only solution would be a universal second language, such as Esperanto.

Or Tagalog.