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With today’s existing translation tools to overcome language barriers, global collaboration should not be a major feat for researchers. However, through the COVID-19 pandemic, articles published in Chinese journals focusing on important aspects of the disease were never cited by English journals. As a result, American scholars have wasted valuable time doing research, thereby duplicating the results already published.
Researchers cannot simply push a treatise through a simple translation tool to produce an easy-to-read multilingual science. Also, in the absence of human translators trained on readily available technical subjects, most researchers choose to publish their scientific, technical engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research in primary English. To do.
Currently, a team of graduate students at Northwestern University is aiming to change that.
In a treatise entitled “Call for the Diversification of the Lingua Franca of the Academic STEM Community” published today (August 31st). Journal of Science Policy & GovernmentMembers of the Science Policy Outreach Task Force (SPOT) at Northwestern University are calling for new government policy measures to pave the way for linguistic diversity in STEM publications.
Researchers say the goal is to improve scientific communication around the world and close the gap between English and non-English STEM writing.
Ranya Virk, co-lead author and candidate for the Department of Biomedical Engineering, McCormick Engineering at Northwestern University, said that many languages are included in their faculties, but when it comes to publishing, language diversity. Is missing.
“This dual barrier that currently exists prevents researchers from different countries from accessing all relevant non-native languages,” Burke said. “First, the lack of influential open access publications makes it difficult to access this study due to the high copyrights. The problem we address is the effective communication of scientific information. It’s a language barrier that hinders you. You just rate your publication. English journals raise this barrier to accessibility. “
By building a more comprehensive publishing environment, according to Burke, international researchers can feel that their voice, language and culture are taken into account rather than being lost in translation. increase.
When international researchers publish breakthrough discoveries in publications in languages other than English, they suffer great disadvantages. For example, in the STEM world, it is unlikely to be cited or may be considered irrelevant. When TuYouyou won the Nobel Prize for discovering the antimalarial drug artemisinin in 2015, she was cited only once outside China. On the other hand, reviews of papers published in English received more than 800 citations.
Today, few publications allow publication in multiple languages, in which case researchers have to bear the cost of translation. This can reach $ 10,000. That’s why co-authors Virk, Kaylee Henry, Huei Sears, and Lindsay DeMarchi have developed the idea of a translation grant backed by the US government. Scientists, with government funding assigned to each researcher, select one of the three non-English languages from the list of most spoken languages in the field, in addition to English, and academically. You can publish your paper.
This strategy will allow us to “perform faster and more comprehensive research” by removing the major obstacles faced by non-English-speaking researchers in the United States. However, there are two solutions. Multilingual publications still need to be normalized and standardized after incorporating policies to address translations. As part of the publication, SPOT members Journal of Science Policy & Government To host translations of articles in other languages such as Spanish, French, Arabic, Greek and Hindi.
Henry, the corresponding author, and a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering hope that this treatise (both published and published on a multilingual platform) will begin a conversation about STEM’s linguistic diversity. Said.
“The STEM community has put a lot of effort into increasing diversity,” Henry said. “Specifically, the community is working to change the definition of hairstyles that are considered” professional “to include black hairstyles, increasing the number of women in STEM, different cultures and races. … but no one has seen it. Organizations trying to deal with language inclusiveness. This is important and I think it’s missing. ”
Kaylee Henry et al, Shaping the Future of Science Policy, Journal of Science Policy & Government (2021). DOI: 10.38126 / JSPG180303
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Northwestern University
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