The Language of Science

The world of scientific research is one of endless collaborations. Although the competition for breakthroughs, such as finding novel treatments and vaccines, is always heated up, it’s a field that cannot thrive without the joint effort of the scientific community as a whole. 

Generally speaking, scientists go through an abundance of scientific papers, books, and other resources, containing data and information from previously published work, before coming up with new hypotheses and research ideas. Then, they write grant proposals to secure funding for their research experiments. This means that scientists should be able to refer to and fully comprehend the works of others in the field, wherever that may come from. Not only that, but scientists need to attend conferences to keep up with the latest updates and scientific breakthroughs, and expand their networks. This raises the question, “How do scientists from different parts of the world communicate?”

It is safe to say that English is considered the universal language of science, with an impressive 98% of scientific publications being written in English, including those by researchers using English as a foreign language, according to a publication by PLOS ONE. In fact, according to Dr. Gordin of the University of Chicago, English was recognized as the international language of science in 1967.

By and large, a scientist’s success is measured by the number of papers they publish in prestigious scientific journals with high impact factors—an impact factor is a scientometric index reflecting the rank of a scientific journal based on the yearly number of citations of its articles published in the last two years—and by how much their papers get cited. Hence, since top journals with the highest impact factors are in English, like Nature, Science, Immunity, etc., it is only natural for scientists to strive to publish in them. In addition, a study published by Ambio showed that articles published in English were much more cited than those published in other languages. 

This means that a huge number of scientists ought not only be excellent at what they do, i.e. science, but also be able to communicate their work professionally in a foreign language. Many become exceptional writers, but to most, speaking English and explaining their work is an uphill battle. As a result, reading and writing practice is not enough. Scientists need to put in a lot of effort into their speaking and listening skills, in order to be able to efficiently communicate with others in the field, and effectively promote their work. On top of that, they must go the extra mile and learn technical scientific terms on top of general English. 

This matter has opened the door to an endless debate on whether an international language of science is considered a blessing or a curse. What do you think?
—
heated up—serious and exciting

uphill battle—something that is very difficult to do.

go the extra mile—do more than one is required to do.