It is often noted that Spanish needs to be more widely used or understood in the scientific community, given the variety of its speakers worldwide, in keeping with estimates by the Instituto Cervantes almost 600 million.
However, thousands and thousands of speakers don’t necessarily provide linguistic power in academia. This have to be cultivated at the scientific, political and cultural levels, with the continuous efforts of many institutions and specialists.
The scientific community should communicate in as many languages as possible
According to some estimates, as many as 98% of the world’s scientific research is published in Englishjust being nearby 18% of the world’s population it speaks. Therefore, publishing in other languages is essential if we need to make research accessible to society at large.
The value of multilingualism in science has been highlighted by many prestigious organizations in public declarations and statements on this matter from European Charter for Researchers, Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism, UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, OPERAS White Paper on Multilingualism, Latin American Forum on Research Evaluation, COARA Agreement on Research Assessment Reformand Declaration of the fifth Meeting of Ministers and Scientific Authorities of the Ibero-American Countries. All these organizations agree on one thing: all languages have value in scientific communication.
How the last of those declarations Notes that research of local, regional and national importance is consistently published in languages apart from English. This research has an economic, social and cultural impact on the surrounding environment as scientific knowledge is disseminated and reaches specialists beyond academia, thus making a broader culture of information sharing.
Greater diversity also enables fluid dialogue between scientists who share the same language or speak and understand multiple languages. For example, in Ibero-American America, Spanish and Portuguese can often be used mutually understood by foreigners, enabling them to share the scientific scene. The same thing happens in Spain with most of its inhabitants co-official languages.
No hierarchies, no categories
Too often, research conducted in any language apart from English is routinely viewed as second-rate work, with little regard to the quality of the work itself.
This harmful bias ignores the work of those involved, especially in the humanities and social sciences. It also profoundly undermines the ability of the global academic community to share knowledge with society.
By defending and preserving multilingualism, the scientific community brings research closer to those that need it. If this goal is not realized, academia can be unable to develop and expand its audience. We must work fastidiously, systematically and consistently in every language available to us.
The logistics of enhancing linguistic diversity in science
Strengthening language in academia is a posh process. This doesn’t occur spontaneously and requires careful coordination and planning. Efforts needs to be made by public and private institutions, media and other cultural institutions, in addition to politicians, science diplomacyand the researchers themselves.
Many of those elements must work together, as the work of the Spanish National Research Council has shown IT’S SCIENCEa project aimed toward uniting scientific and political efforts.
Academic publishing and AI models: a brand new challenge
The global academic landscape is changing consequently of digital transformation and latest open access models. To understand this alteration, it can be essential to research publishers of science content in other languages. However, one thing is clear: ensuring that scientific content produced in a particular language is visible and searchable on the Internet is crucial to making sure its strength.
For academic books the transition to open access has barely begun, especially in the industrial publishing sector, which publishes around 80% of scientific books in Spain. As with online publishing, a transparent understanding will enable the design of policies and models that consider alternative ways of disseminating research, including those who communicate locally and in other languages. Greater linguistic diversity in book publishing may additionally allow us to properly appreciate the work publishers have done in making research accessible to non-English speakers.
Another essential element requiring scientific and technical support is facilitating the seek for publications, datasets and other non-linguistic research results. The same applies to expanding the body of scientific literature in Spanish and other languages, especially as it applies to generative artificial intelligence models.
If linguistically diverse scientific content is not incorporated into AI systems, it will disseminate information that is incomplete, biased or misleading: the recent Spanish government report on the state of the Spanish language and co-official languages He points out that 90% of texts currently entered into artificial intelligence are written in English.
An intensive study of the terminology is essential
Terminology research is of paramount importance to stop the use of improvised, imprecise language or incomprehensible jargon. It can also bring huge advantages in terms of the quality of human and machine translations, teaching specialized languages, and indexing and organizing large volumes of documents.
Terminological work in Spanish is carried out today because of the processing of huge linguistic corpora by artificial intelligence and researchers from Teresa project, a collaborative effort coordinated by the Spanish National Research Council. However, it took 15 years of ups and downs to bring such a project to life in Spanish.
On the other hand, the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia worked intensively and systematically on their languages. Not only have they been concerned with terminology as a matter of public language policy, but they’ve also been involved in established terminology projects for a very long time.
Multilingualism is a worldwide problem
This need for greater diversity also applies throughout Ibero-American America, where efforts are being coordinated to advertise Spanish and Portuguese in academia, especially through Ibero-American General Secretariat and Mexican National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technology.
While this is much needed, we cannot promote the two most generally spoken languages in the region and ignore the diversity of indigenous and co-official languages. They are also involved in knowledge production and are a vehicle for transmitting scientific information, as efforts in Spain have demonstrated.
Each country has a singular role to play in promoting greater linguistic diversity in science communication. If this can be achieved, the power of Iberian languages - and for that matter – in academia won’t be at the mercy of excellent intentions but of sporadic efforts. Instead, it can be the results of the scientific community’s involvement in the culture of information sharing.
