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Ten tips for overcoming language barriers in science

Nature Human Behaviour volume 5, pages 1119–1122 (2021)Cite this article

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Language barriers have serious consequences in science, causing inequality for under-represented communities, making non-English-language knowledge inaccessible, and impeding the uptake of science by decision-makers. Here we provide a practical checklist as a starting point for tackling this overlooked issue.

Language barriers are a multifaceted problem that has major consequences in science. Just as one would in many other situations, any scientist or user of science can face difficulties in conducting and communicating science when it involves a language other than their mother tongue. It has often been perceived as the ‘English’ barrier encountered specifically by non-native speakers of English due to their own lack of linguistic capabilities. It certainly does, often quite severely, affect educational and career opportunities for non-native English speakers1,2, who constitute 95% of the global population. We often leave the task of overcoming the language (i.e., English) barrier almost entirely to the non-native English-speaking scientific community and ultimately to individuals trying to overcome the barrier through their own efforts and investments. However, tackling language barriers is clearly an urgent task for the entire scientific community if we are to address the existing inequality in academia.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the eLife Ambassador program for bringing the authors together to discuss this important topic. Thanks also to W. J. Sutherland for his invaluable feedback on an earlier draft and M. Amano for all the support. T.A. is supported by the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT180100354) and the University of Queensland strategic funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Tatsuya Amano

  2. Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Tatsuya Amano

  3. Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Clarissa Rios Rojas

  4. Epicentre, Yaoundé, Cameroon

    Yap Boum II

  5. Physiology Department, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Margarita Calvo

  6. Millennium Nucleus for the Study of Pain (MiNuSPain), Santiago, Chile

    Margarita Calvo

  7. Independent Researcher, Namburu, India

    Biswapriya B. Misra

Authors
  1. Tatsuya Amano
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  2. Clarissa Rios Rojas
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  3. Yap Boum II
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  4. Margarita Calvo
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  5. Biswapriya B. Misra
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tatsuya Amano.

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Competing interests

B.B.M. currently works as a Principal Scientist with Enveda Biosciences but did not receive any funding for this work.

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Peer review information Nature Human Behaviour thanks Emilio Bruna, Caroline Wagner and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Amano, T., Rios Rojas, C., Boum II, Y. et al. Ten tips for overcoming language barriers in science. Nat Hum Behav 5, 1119–1122 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01137-1

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