The dominance of English in the international scientific periodical literature and the future of language use in science

Abstract

Throughout the 20th century, international communication has shifted from a plural use of several languages to a clear pre-eminence of English, especially in the field of science. This paper focuses on international periodical publications where more than 75 percent of the articles in the social sciences and humanities and well over 90 percent in the natural sciences are written in English. The shift towards English implies that an increasing number of scientists whose mother tongue is not English have already moved to English for publication. Consequently, other international languages, namely French, German, Russian, Spanish and Japanese lose their attraction as languages of science. Many observers conclude that it has become inevitable to publish in English, even in English only. The central question is whether the actual hegemony of English will create a total monopoly, at least at an international level, or if changing global conditions and language policies may allow alternative solutions. The paper analyses how the conclusions of an inevitable monopoly of English are constructed, and what possible disadvantages such a process might entail. Finally, some perspectives of a new plurilingual approach in scientific production and communication are sketched.

Neology and terminological dependency

“…This position was certainly not the case in the nineteenth century, as can be judged by Becker (2006), who observes that terminological innovation in the field of mathematics, including mutual borrowing, took place on a comparable level in the three main languages, French, German and English. The situation continued until the 1920s, as is shown in Hamel (2007), who documents the decline of languages such as French and German as scientific languages (Spanish only figures for the human sciences). The present paper addresses terminological dependency only in present-day top-ranking research in some natural and applied sciences, but further work would be required to document how the phenomenon filters down to other less specialized situations.…”

Language Policy as a Sociocultural Tool: Insights from the University of Cape Town

“…Indeed, the increase in number of English courses offered by universities in Europe is substantial. Also, regarding scientific publications the expansion of English is striking, with number of publications in English oscillating around 90%, depending on the discipline (Hamel, 2007;van Weijen, 2012). Publishing in international journals is considered much more prestigious and profitable than writing for domestic audiences (Brock-Utne, 2001), especially in times where university funding schemes are increasingly determined by publication-related factors.…”

Systematic Reviews: A Social Work Perspective

“…A not uncommon inclusion criterion is that the material is written in English (O' Mara-Eves et al, 2014). Given the predominance of the English language in international publishing and even more so in the bibliographic databases (Hamel, 2007), in practice this may not have a critical impact on the findings reported in a systematic review. However, assuming any findings authors publish in other languages are no more or less favourable to those they publish in English, which may not be so (Egger et al, 1997).…”