Dear all,

gender balance is usually considered in scientific association but it is not so frequent to have a she-president. I am proud to be the first one in the European Federation of Sexology. It hasn't been easy! Furthermore I come from the South of Europe as I am a professor in Rome...with a different culture! In the Italian academic context many women are now teachers but not in the higher position. I am an associate professor!

You may look at

Weidemann, Doris (2010). Challenges of International Collaboration in the Social Sciences. in: Michael Kuhn; Doris Weidemann (Eds.) Internationalization of the Social Sciences: Asia - Latin America - Middle East - Africa - Eurasia (S. 353 bis 378) Bielefeld: transcript Verlag

Best regards,

Thomas Slunecko

Thanks Thomas - I will definitely check this out. Hopefully though, people will add their own thoughts and experiences to the thread as well :-)

Tu pregunta tiene relación con lo mi campo de investigación, y pienso que si lees Wittgenstein, en sus escritos posteriores, y luego a sociocinstruccionistas como Kenneth Gergen y Michael White, Harlene Anderson, encontrarás que tu preocupación es absolutamente válida. El lenguaje, está demostrado neurológicamente (Lupan y Ward, en Proceedings, Academia Nacional de Ciencias de USA), determina en gran medida nuestra percepción y nuestra manera de entender el mundo, osea que da forma a nuestras relaciones. Aunque te estoy hablando del lenguaje en una manera mucho más amplia que el idioma, que es a lo que te refieres, el idioma es la manera en la que expresamos mucho porcentaje de este lenguaje, y por lo tanto, no es igual la comprensión en un idioma que en otro, porque ambos reflejan culturas y maneras de pensar distintas, a pesar de nuestros esfuerzos por globalizarnos.

ihope this will help

http://internacional.ipvc.pt/sites/default/files/Internationalization%20and%20knowledge%20circulation%20IPVC_vf.pdf

regards

Hi Scherezada - I think your point about how we perceive the world, relationships etc, is definitely related to how we feel able to express ourselves, and language (amongst other things) is a big component of this.

Of course, the fact that I asked a question, you answered it in another language & I felt able to respond (based on my understanding of an imperfect auto-translation), is a big step forward from remaining in our own countries & languages :-) Perhaps something as simple as this can play a small role in moving our efforts to globalize forward ?

Google translate:

Your question is related to my field of research it, and I think if you read Wittgenstein, in his later writings, and then sociocinstruccionistas as Kenneth Gergen and Michael White, Harlene Anderson, you will find that your concern is quite valid. The language is shown neurologically (Lupan and Ward, in Proceedings, National Academy of Sciences USA), largely determines our perception and understanding of the world, meaning that shapes our relationships. While I'm talking to the language in a much broader language, that's what you mean, language is the way we express much percentage of this language, and therefore, not the same understanding in one language than another, because both reflect cultures and different ways of thinking, despite our efforts to globalize.

me thinks that the most important falls on Culture combined with Language as language is the vehicle of ideas.

I don´t know if it´s simple Nicholas, and I have serious doubts about our need of globalization. I think we, as human beings, we will be able of globalize our communities once we learn to value and respect them first, and we are not doing it. When we translate, we have to reject thoughts from our languaje, to re order them in a different languaje, and I think this exercise changes sometimes very important aspects of what we are trying to express, what do you think?

I have a group of female students learning Engish. They learn differently from boys. They cooperate more with each other. Indeed there is a lot of communciation among many of them. On the ohter hand, I have a group of boys that are more individualistic. Please refer to Deborah Tannen to study this in depth.

Hi, I am a female Chilean anthropologist. Based on my own experience I convinced the only way to overcome the cultural and language barriers is just to learn other languages and find the ways to travel around, I know that ´s difficult in developing countries due to lack of funding.

Recently I presented a paper about gender and embodiment at an international academic conference. I was asked questions by academics who drew on different cultural inscriptions of gender. Because of different languages spoken by myself and my audience I was forced to make clear my positionality in terms of intersections of culture, race, gender, age, academic discipline and so on. These intersections are often taken for granted until you are faced with language and cultural differences. My points had to be clear because they were translated into other languages. I found the experience rewarding in that face to face interaction with these academics provided opportunities to foreground our differences as a community of practice whilst fusing our ideas. Although this is not easy when naturally occuring dialogue involves people who speak different languages.

I have one experience in the case. In 2012 i went to germany for one research stay. I confess i did not know German and for that was very difficult the comunication with other partners and students. But I learned a valuable lesson, because all my stay in the country i take advantage of know people i was in the same situation, and also to persons residing in Germany but did not identify with the filosofy of German live. It was an opportunity that presented itself and I did not hesitate at any time to take it, there are often opportunities but these people do not dare to take them for fear of not knowing the language, and forgets that the communicate is a human need and to find in a context where you need to communicate every effort to achieve it.

The locks that exist in Latin America to make such decisions are many and when you get to thinking you should not deliver a single minute, because I learned from such experiences anthropologically gratify you.

Not knowing a language does not affect your communicative learning.

Thank you for this important question,

I think all you mentioned (Gender, Culture or Language etc.) have different implications on research. But those implications varies from person to person even within the same culture, language and gender.

for me, I studied my PhD in English, my mother language is Arabic, even though I find it is difficult to write a professional paper without an English editor, this increase publishing time and cost .

Sadly the university where I work in does not support travel cost, conference fees or any other costs related to research, because its own fund resources plus the government support almost cover the running costs.

They encourage research through promotions, for example no one can promote from assistant professor to associate professor without publishing at least 5 papers in a reputable indexed journal in the same field of study, but they leave their professor do this effort alone.

I think that great ideas are not confined to developed countries only...because of the mentioned barriers and others, humanity may lose much.

Firstly, thank you all for your responses. I only posted the question earlier today & already, so many of you have taken time to reply :-)

I firstly started the question, because although my searches for my specialist area of interest (academic poster presentation if anyone is interested) have proved relatively fruitful in the English language, I am certain there is a wealth of data out there in perhaps Arabic, Urdu, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish .... the list goes on ! As has been pointed out, many of these authors / authorities are knowledgeable, reputable & have a potentially valued point to make. Our problem is that we might not meet each other or become aware of each others work, simply because we stay within our local or cultural base.

I do not think you should have to be a language expert to communicate or access published material, but how for instance would I go about searching the 'foreign' language databases for items of interest - is this something that a multi-national service could provide?

I also act as an English editor & regularly despair that so many people with so much to say, often say it in a limited cultural pool, where it will never reach a wider audience (& maybe do the good for which it is intended). At least if we can access material, then we have some (again, albeit imperfect) tools that may help us get a gist of what is being said. In this way, we might also get an appreciation of the implications an issue may have from another cultural perspective.

I will try to respond to the issues you have each contributed (& again, feel free to use your own languages), but thanks for the great interest you have shown so far !

I think websites like this one are a great source of material which comes from researchers all around the globe, but as far as an international database--I'm not sure one actually exists. And then there is the question of discipline-specific research. Where would one even begin to look?

Maybe you shouldn't have to be a language expert to access or use material published in another language, but without a working knowledge of another author's language, how will you know what you have if you find it?

Translating everything into a common, accessible language seems the only answer to making research easily available to all, but so much can be lost in the translation, as Scherezada said. In the meantime, I guess we are all--as long as we don't learn to speak other languages-- stuck in our limited cultural pool.

But what a great question!

Dear all,

gender balance is usually considered in scientific association but it is not so frequent to have a she-president. I am proud to be the first one in the European Federation of Sexology. It hasn't been easy! Furthermore I come from the South of Europe as I am a professor in Rome...with a different culture! In the Italian academic context many women are now teachers but not in the higher position. I am an associate professor!

I have found a significant barrier in interacting with non-English speaking colleagues who believe their English to be near-native. Trying to gently convince them that what they have written in English does not actually make sense, or is a popular but incorrect translation of a concept or phrase is almost impossible. Example in German: "Wissenschaft" is usually translated as "science", when "science" in most English-speaking context indicates natural sciences ("Wissenschaft" is often better translated as scholarship, academia, research.... etc.). I think that my non-native English colleagues can understand each other in their uses of English perfectly - but I fear that their scholarship gets ignored by native English speakers (for instance, not published in North American or UK journals).

Hi Nicholas, I have experience as National Delegate within European Commission Programme Committee "Science in society" and I confirm language is a problem in Europe, but I don't have studied it. However, I've been publishing (in English!) a couple of papers about gender in Italian scientific community (see on my page for references). Keep in touch. Andrea

Ok - a few replies to your posts:

Constantine - I think you are right in considering culture alongside language. In the link you sent, we are encouraged to 'participate, foster networks and expand horizons' - I hope we can take some simple steps to do just that & the definition given of the new information society points to this. I am not convinced we need to 'reject thoughts from our own language' (SE) as they are inherent to what led us to formulate our opinion in the first place. We do however need to consider the context of our main readership & if there are some parts that may not be readily understandable to people outside our own cultural circle, then these might benefit from some elaboration / context.

Scherezada - Of course, nothing in this area is clear cut or simple. Each of us have our own issues related to gender, culture & language (GCL) and often, all others can do is empathise & be a little considerate to potential issues in their dealings with others. IMO, one important factor of GCL is the toleration of difference. Our cultures are perhaps not better or worse than each other ... just different.

Larisa - Not sure if it is a question of languages being popular, rather than familiar. ML says 'Maybe you shouldn't have to be a language expert to access or use material published in another language, but without a working knowledge of another author's language, how will you know what you have if you find it?' OK: let's get this bit out of the way first - my own first language is English (lucky me in this context), but it is a fact that critical global mass has selected it as the main medium of communication between cultures. Similar mass (in terms of numbers) may exist in other geographical regions and this leads to isolated cultural pools, where good work is produced, but often remains inaccessible to outsiders (often because of script). Spoken English allows for huge variations of accent as it has a huge vocabulary (taken from all over the world). Many people can 'get by' and a perfect delivery is not needed to communicate effectively. Other languages are more demanding - for example I speak limited Finnish, but if my 'foreign accent' or understanding delivers 'a' and not 'aa' to the receiver, then I have in fact used a totally different word. German for example, I have found to be much more forgiving & people tend to get what I am going on about, as opposed to standing there with a blank look on their face :-) Spoken English however often allows for such a thing & will take for granted that you probably meant x, not y. We can get the same grasp from these auto-translate systems - the odd word is completely out of place, but we can get the general idea .... and that is a start & definitely much better from staying in the dark! ** Thanks for the Russian link - if you have any terms I can use for articles with 'academic/scientific poster' in the title, that would be great - and that goes for anyone in any language - terms and search mechanisms, your help would be much appreciated :-) **

Benita - You raise the point of precision (& we perhaps mistakenly) believe that this is the area we are in. Every concept emerges from a vague idea which we refine until it is watertight. So, the starting point of conversation, auto translation etc is just this. There is nothing worse than having a conversation (in a foreign language) with someone who picks away at every possible area of difference - it becomes more of an examination that reciprocal dialogue. Often though, our written peer review system does exactly that & for good reason - we have to convey as close to our original thought as possible so readers will have an accurate grasp of what we mean. LE raises good points about this. I think in our first steps at crossing cultural and language boundaries, we have to be acceptant of limited technologies, the same way that we are acceptant of those who do not have a 'perfect' grasp of our own languages .....

Which brings me onto my last point (I will talk about Gender in another post) - 'Native Speaker'. I think there is a huge misconception that a 'non-native' speaker is in some way below the standard of a 'native' speaker. This is for example reflected in the pay-scales for language teachers around the world. I do not have a problem with it being used as a label to indicate a persons 1st language, but it does not always indicate their level of proficiency or expertise. How many citizens of your own country do you know, who have exemplary skills in the use of their own language? Ok - to polish up the fine points of expression, e.g. those needed for high level publication, you need either to be able to attain this level yourself (which is a huge undertaking for anyone), or use a language editing service which as AH says, contributes to cost. So, in addition to having some form of central search 'tool', how can we make language editing services more accessible and affordable?

Chiara - as a 'Western male' I can only empathise with you ( ;-) ) Of course, in your culture, so many in-grained perspectives (on both sides of the fence) are still openly present. I confess that my own (I think) lack of discrimination has made me very naïve. I was for example shocked by examples of gender difference in the UK & Finland this week, where in both countries there were 10-15% differences in pay for the same post only on the basis of gender - how can this exist in countries that have laws which are meant to prevent this and societies that profess such treatment is not acceptable? Either the law does not work, or the general mass of people do not care enough to do something about it - is it ok to simply put it down to 'culture' if we also acknowledge that it is incorrect?

Congratulations though on breaking through this - well deserved I am sure !

Just as a culture-language thing ... why do we toss Latin into academia, when we don't need to? Attached is a photo of a poster I saw in a Finnish university hall this week. It has a Latin label which is then loosely explained in the English language. The rest of the poster was in Finnish / English. Finland also broadcasts its news in Latin of a daily basis ..... how many does such usage reach out to, and if this is a limited number, then what is the intended purpose?

Thoughts anyone?

Thanks a lot Nicholas for your understanding. To be honest it is not easy to live in the country of "bunga-bunga" where politicians are now discussing just to keep Berlusconi as a leader. What a shame!

About Latin: for us is useful (our language roots and that's true for French, Spanish Italian people) but in other context I believe it is only "chic"...

have a nice day!

Nicholas - Indeed, my native speakers of English students would laugh with you (perhaps at me!) at your question of whether native speakers speak perfectly. They would be the first to tell you that I spend much time in any class on using language correctly, spoken and written.

I speak and have taught (and taught in) several different languages, including English, and you are absolutely right: being a native speaker does not mean speaking perfectly. That is why - regardless of my students' or colleagues' nationality and mother tongue(s) - I spend a significant amount of time going over the ways in which a language is a vehicle that allows to express what we are trying to say. When the language stands in the way of meaning, then we need what you refer to as more precision. I often show my students the comments I receive from reviewers on my article that point to where I have not used a phrase correctly, or have used too much passive voice (almost a sin for historians in English, ha...) - I think it is important that young scholars understand that we are all always working to be better communicators, and we seldom get it entirely right.

When I lived in Italy, the EU had recently come out with the pronouncement (if I remember correctly - it would have been around 2000) that all Europeans should speak 3 langauges at native or near-native level and have a fourth that one could communicate in. I was a visiting doctoral researcher at the European Univ. Instit. in Florence, and was thus surrounded by international researchers for whom 4 languages was nothing - they aspired to twice that. The aspirational policy turned out to be too much for a real policy, but it influenced strongly my understanding of what it means to work cross-culturally/interculturally with languages.

I teach (among other thngs) European history, and this part of my academic life includes "translating" words, but also ideas and concepts, to students and colleagues. This process involves -as Larisa mentioned earlier - having an awareness of what the "target audience" knows so that I can find the best way to access their knowledge and help them expand their understanding of something.

I think context is important - I have noticed that errors of communication when I am teaching in any language, to any nationality - are often language errors: I have used a word that my students are unfamiliar with (including my American students) or have made a simple mistake myself. I saw this process most clearly when teaching in a foreign language to native speakers of German, for instance, where I relied heavily on my students' patience, but also on their willigness to tell me that something I had just said or written made no sense in German. When I then taught in English at a later date, I found that the process was similar - I had just not seen it as easily.

I think it is a problem that people generally accept that English is a language that is "easy to speak badly" (but well enough) - especially for English speakers. It leads to the assumption that English native speakers do not need to learn a foreign language and that all other languages are too hard anyway - even though those same people would be willing to learn a different, difficult skill. It also creates a separate category of English that is non-native that we are reluctant to be critical of, although anything I write or present in German, or French, or Italian (or English for an English-speaking audience) must go through several phases of editing by someone else.

Yes, language is living and moving and ever-changing - and for this very reason, we need to make sure that we are being clear when we are working towards new definitions. Gender-specific language is an excellent example of this phenomenon - my students in Austria have trained me to remember to write acceptable forms of gender-includsive language that are different forms than what I knew from Germany, or in other languages. This can be an exciting process, if we allow it to be; or we can decide that it is too nit-picky and might hurt people's feelings or make them shy to communicate. But isn't that the point of communication, to recognize that the ultimate responsibilitiy of ensuring that someone has understood us is the speaker's responsibility (this is at the heart of gender communication strategies)? I am grateful to my colleagues who insist - whether in English or German or French or Italian - that I phrase a concept with the correct grammar and vocabularly in order for them to be able to understand me. Sometimes this process is funny for all of us; sometimes it involves my recognition that I have made a major linguistic-cultural mistake and need to make it right.

The persistent use of "science", again, is a problem that will, as you suggest, likely force native English speakers to give up their (our, my) insistence that the word "science" privileges a certain kind of knowledge - but we are not there yet, and this has been the case since around the 1970s, in some scholars' discussions. I am not a scientist - I am a scholar, and for an English-speaker, there is a difference. When I read the word outside of native English contexts, I have to read more to see whether the person means "science" in the sense of the natural sciences and mathematics, or whether the category means scholars, or researchers. This phenomenon is a shame, since it means that many native speakers of English who do not interact with non-native English communities of English speakers might overlook a call for papers, or a journal, or an article, or assume that a fellowship or research opportunity is meant for biologists /chemists /physicists and not for historians/linguists etc. And this problem is one I still have myself, after these many years. When I was asked to be part of a group that attended a meeting for a Scientific Advisory Board at my university, I responded that I was not qualified, since I was not a scientist! Everyone looked at me for a few seconds and then someone remembered that I likely did not realize that my colleagues' use of science was specific to European academic communities, and that as a historian, media, gender and educational studies scholar, I was a "scientist" in their eyes. It was a funny moment at the time - it would have been less funny had that misunderstanding led towards my colleagues believing I was rejecting them.

None of this is to say that we should not treat speakers around us with patience and tolerance and even imagination - that must also be part of the foundation for communication. But why is it that I would never have been able to contemplate a position in a German-speaking country without being able to pass rigorous languge exams, and that I am taken more seriously when I do not make mistakes that are typical of those that Americans make when speaking German.... but we find it perfectly acceptable to have one language - English - where we are fine with a definition of good enough that has no metrics to define good enough?

And oh, the solutions.... if only they did not cost money for more language instruction, including for native speakers (!), more research into languge, more opportunities for non-native speakers to become more fluent and fluid.... for now we must rely on each other to ( in my case) see corrections in our use of a language as a positive attempt to communicate better, and not as an attempt to correct for the desire to correct.

Following Larisa's link www.yandex.ru & using only Google Translate 'стендовый доклад' , I have found over 50 Russian language articles & references that are useful to my work, pointing out differences in poster presentation requirements, cultural perception, fields of use etc. Of course, there were loads of 'hits' (@154,000) & it is time consuming auto-translating things that look as if they may prove interesting, but this is work that I would never have otherwise considered :-)

Larisa, thank you for your help! Everyone else - please send me your language variants of 'poster presentation' & directions to your own versions of Google & Google Scholar (if your sceptical, there is work that demonstrates higher pick-up rates on these commercial search engines, than on specialist academic databases). I aim to run over as many languages as I can, especially those with large speaking populations and scripts that many non-natives do not identify with.

Anything you can do to help is much appreciated :-)

Chiara - I am glad the 'Romance' lives on (forgive the bad joke), but aren't we dusty academics meant to be above (or 'supra') the desire to be chic? Of course, being Italian has a certain genetic talent to be chic, but for us mere 'followers of fashion', I wonder what we are trying to show by our persistent use of a language that has most of us suffering PTSD type flash backs of the classroom ... amabo, amabas, amabat, .....

Not to mention how people from your country pronounce the latin words! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Chiara - the last Roman had the temerity to jump ship from British shores 1630 years ago. As history records, our country then entered a steady decline (some say we have never recovered) and we ended up with our own hotch-potch language, most of which we have plundered from around the globe. No wonder we end up in detention for our lack of attention to the delicate tones of the ... finer languages. AmAR-Bo, AmAR-BASS, AmAR-BAHT etc .... ;-)

usque tandem abutere...? I wish I could speak (and write) English as an English one

;-)

Chiara - I missed the 'abuse' reference (probably my poor Latin). There are many ways of speaking English though & you don't have to be English to be able to communicate either effectively or to convey your own personality and meaning in the language. I think though that someones written language reveals more about them than their spoken language (with or without help).

it was some time ago: 8th November 63 before Christ! Cicero against Catilina (who was trying to kill him)

So I thought it was appropriate for killing Latin and this happens with:

AmAR-Bo, AmAR-BASS, AmAR-BAHT

;-)

For us it is easier of course! No merit at all for that...it's our culture! Culture and roots seem to be important

Cicero:

usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?Quamdiu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet?

Very often I kill English as well but surely I can communicate

Italians, German, French (and other nations) motivate their guests to speak their languages. It's the greatest thing! I think, every person, being a guest in other country, must know simple cliches- it's a sign of politeness.I have just come back from Rome.I fell in love with Italy, Italian musical language, rich culture. I spoke English, semi-Italian, Latin and Italians understood me Our communication was productive. They appreciated my efforts and supported and initiated me. I tried to find common traits in our cultures and was successful in it. But I missed my land and tried to meet them with my culture. Surely, only through other cultures a human being can recognize one's own identity..

In Israel the situation is different, Writing articles in the official languages ​​- Hebrew or Arabic, not considered for academic promotion. Therefore Colleges encouraging academy collaborations with researchers from other countries and to publish only in English.

Irina: where are you from? I imagine you from Old Russia: I was working both in Moscow and St Petersbourgh one year ago and it has been a discovery to me: I met there very interesting people and colleagues full of life and projects, people with a lot of empathy and humor...

Yovav: it is the same all over the world! English is the official language in science even if Spanish is spoken more frequently in real life...

Chiara, you are right- I'm from Voronezh (the Black Soil region of Russia, although I'm a northern (chud) Russian (our roots are near St.Petersburg). Thank you for your kind words. It's a very sympathetic trait of Italians to be tolerant and broad-hearted. I have met smile, smile, smile in Italy.Well, the smiles were not artificial, they were from the hearts.I have visited a lot of countries in my life, I have lived , studied and shared my experience in many countries.I tried to absorb the spirit of every country and to build bridges with all the people, whom I met.That's why I appreciate RG. It goes without saying,the English language is a planetary bridge.

Yovav's point about a native language not counting is interesting and typical. On the one hand, I understand that a university wants to make its scholars' work accessible to a larger, international community. On the other hand, it can get ridiculous. My university, too, prioritizes all international publications, meaning in general English. I find this amusing, since as an American (working in Europe), another English-language publication on my c.v. would not make me look more connected to the international community for U.S. colleagues. They would more likely wonder why I wouldn't take advantage of working with European researchers to publish in an international (perhaps non-English language!) journal. The other message, of course, is that a journal in German, or Hebrew, or French, or Italian.... is "obviously" inferior to any English-language journal, which is absurd and harmful to a country's academic community, which needs to (also) be able to communicate with each other in the language that they use everyday in their research/teaching/writing/discussions.

Good point Benita- this is one of the reasons we need to overcome the language divide & also the 'culture' of academia. I think many institutions still regard English in the sense of only a language, and not as a (highly popular) tool by which to communicate. However it also goes for other languages of critical mass (eg. Chinese, Russian, Arabic) - there is a ready home market for those who stick to their own language, so those outside of it often have to find rudimentary ways to access their work ... and don't get me started on peoples websites .... ahhhh !

The search engines & databases are not particularly reliable or consistent when it comes to finding data (i.e. a PubMed article may show up on one database search, but not on another). I am currently having to do a lot of manual information retrieval & evaluation .... which brings me to another thing: why do we say that some databases / search approaches are not of a 'suitable' quality, just because it may include 'lesser' publications, not index or remove duplicate entries etc ? I am finding all sorts of data from other countries using basic search approaches, but surely it is up to me (as an academic) to evaluate their worth, validity etc. I think we get very precious of our own 'gold standards', to the point that we simply ignore the contributions others (often from outside our cultures) have to offer. Has anyone else found this ?

There is a forum-feedback on RG related a bit to some of your points here - the RG "machine" does not always find (for instance) citations that are readily available on-line, and it _seems_ that journals of "lesser" importance get overlooked.

One small change I would like to see in academia is a re-assessment of the "importance" or "impact factor" of journals. Much cutting-edge, new research does not appear in "high-impact factor" journals, but rather in smaller, more experimental ones. One _might_ argue that this is a normal process - start of at a smaller venue, work your way into a mainstream journal for publication - but the reality is that many "high impact journals" are ones that I am not as interested in as smaller journals.

Your use of the term gold standard is helpful here - in my field we often talk about "the coin of the realm" - both ideas often cease to become guidelines and do, in fact, turn into rigid measurements.

Re: websites - I am not sure what you think about them, but it is often the case that some websites have well-thought out (and depending, well-researched) entries, or just "blogs", which is the kiss of death if you want to cite something there. It is as if academia works on two levels here (of course it works on more) - traditional peer-reviewed scholarship that may or may not be ground-breaking but will get someone high marks vs. non-reviewed scholarship on, say, a popular website/blog about someone's work on the history of restaurants that would be frowned upon if someone were to cite it, I fear. And I cannot even imagine putting my own blog (which I use for professional writing only) on my, or any, department's review of my work.

But the problem of duplicate entries, etc., is actually quite annoying and there are better engines that implement better algrorhythms. How often have you been asked by RG whether a publication is yours that is far outside your field and might only have been "found" because someone has the same first name as you that is listed in a footnote? (It is a problem that RG does acknowledge and says is working on.)

Discrimination of languages! While in Russia I was very familiar with the English-language articles but U.S. scientists have neglected works in Russian. The shining example is Tikhonov regularization (1943) which is named as a new method - the ridge regression (1960…), in mathematics. It follows from the information theory of Shannon that all modern languages are equivalent. In my humble opinion the developed countries must translate the most important foreign materials to the native languages. One of the greatest achievements of Israel peoples is the revival of Hebrew actually died 2,000 years ago. Now one can see very unacceptable phenomenon – the Hebrew-English mixture in public media. The origin of this thing is an illiteracy and “an admiration for America”. E.g., using the word “magazine” for periodicals (a magazine is MAGZAN in Arabic or MAHSAN in Hebrew-warehouse !!!).

We need a reasonable compromise between the development of national languages and the study of foreign ones.

Joseph - I feel for you !

It is though a question of critical mass and exposure, not fairness or equality. English has @328 million speakers in 112 countries - Russian has @144 million speakers in 33 countries. If we say that all scientists equally deserve to be heard, then the languages of Lahnda & Telugu are in the top 20, yet few people have heard of them outside their own language circle - I do not see people queuing up to translate their papers in a hurry :-(

Like it or not, English has become the accepted language for communication (despite being 3rd in the list in terms of speakers and countries). It does though create a huge burden on those for whom English is not their first language, but there is no equitable option that better suits the purpose of the masses, rather than the minorities, and that, after all is how societies form. I am currently trying to find texts in my own field in non-English languages & am faced with for example a Chinese Google for the term 'poster presentation' of 27 million 'hits', but a Baidu (in the Chinese language) of only 7 million .... try sifting that lot when you haven't a clue about the language or writing system! Only with English language databases and search limiters can I get it to a manageable quantity of data. Progress is being made & we do unearth some good work. Fortunately though, those at the front of their fields tend to use a common tool to communicate their findings (even if they do not actually speak English themselves). Somebody's home language will always be someone else's foreign one :-(

As for what others do to our languages - probably because of media exposure, English is one of the most forgiving/adaptable languages to speak .... it is often the 'academic culture' bit that gets in our way !

If only we had funding organizations who would fund such translations as Joseph suggests (and pay the translators well in exchange for high-quality work)! I would then queue up to have my own work translated, and to translate others' work!

While I understand--and even agree somewhat--with Joseph's point about the mixing of languages (English plus Hebrew as his example), it is nothing new! English itself is a mish-mash of "foreign" words that have become mainstream to the point that no one even remembers that they were originally French or Spanish (or fill in the blank!) That's what languages DO, and English has historically done it better than most. I think the reason (or at least one of them) that English has become a sort of "universal" language is because of its adaptability (that and its prominence within colonialism). Just as English has borrowed and absorbed other languages in the past, today it is being borrowed from and absorbed into other languages. WE may not like it, but it has always happened with one language or another.

Another option might be to have a national / international search service that might undertake basic foreign language searches and send you through possible results of interest, say from the first couple of hundred 'hits' from their databases. You could then auto-translate them yourself to get an idea of their worth & then invest in proper translation for worthwhile results. It would be relatively cheap, easily accessible and be a step towards the light for global information sharing.

Ok, the results would not be as targeted as if you had performed the search yourself but given that people would want a cheap service & would not otherwise undertake these searches themselves, then it could be better than doing nothing.

Okay - I can see the first part of your suggestion becoming someone's company, Nicholas. It is the investing in good translation services that is a problem. I am consistently amazed at how often people are horrified at what a good translation costs. Two decades ago, universities (for example) had the financial resources to pay for professional translations (i.e. I had more work offers than I could accept for translating journal articles, presentations, etc.). Those funds have all but dried up - and we are left with inadequate translation that I can barely understand.

You are right that translation software can be a very helpful way to get started - but in the end, it takes money to make the next step.

Single steps ..... long journeys & all that ;-)

Dear Benita Blessing!

Now checking and correcting your English is the source of income for many journals and the reason to reject an article.

Joseph - lots of journals list non-affiliated language editors, so gain no income from correcting your English. I myself process lots of work on different themes, and from what I see, if a reputable journal likes your work, they will give you the opportunity to improve it to the level of an international audience. Thus it does not always constitute grounds for rejection.

If they want to reject the work however ... they can just say 'no' (they have no legal or moral obligation to do otherwise).

I should like to add "The Impact of Politics" to this question

E.g., Iron Curtain in 1980th.

"The greatest question of life is "How can we live among people?"A.Camus.To M.Bakhtin, "When we are looking at each other, there are two different worlds, reflecting in the pupils of our eyes". Once in my life I met a such sort of problem. Actually, I was taken aback, because it was "a stone into my garden" (had a shot at me, or took a dig at me) Being extremely tolerant and broad-hearted by nature, I didn't know how I had to react on the situation. It was on the international conference. There were a lot of highly creative human beings- literally, they were elite from all over the world. I was in rapture and tried to attend the more sessions the better. From my childhood and University years I used to consider creative personalities the best, the most tolerant, permissive beings in comparison with others. But to my greatest wonder, one highly intellectual lady, probably, having in mind the years of the "cold war", may be distating Russian culture, asked (during the session),"Is a Russian matryoshka (nesting doll) a kitch?" The next thrust of the lady was the following,"The Soviet artist presented to my father-artist his own picture, where all the workers were smiling. Why? Were all of them happy? Is it a kitch?" Nowadays, I can affirm, that all of them were really happy, because they had education, job, career, accommodation, medical care, social guarantee- free of charge and free to all. Besides, they were not depressive and had self-confidence. But I kept silence there.Nevertheless,I tried to be out of the woods. After the conference I presented the oldest Russian symbols - Russian dolls to the peers with the words, "Russian kitch" All the peers understood me and smiled. I think, if you have some provocative questions (cultural or ideological character) it will be better to ask them after session. To my joy, Italian people were in rapture, when they saw Russian and Ukrainian folk dances. They stood up and cheered to the echo.To Heidegger, "The most difficult thing is to understand a living being.On the one hand, this being is our next of kin, on the other hand, this being is separated from our existing being by the yawning gap".

Some remarks:

1. Traditional clothing of religious Jews and Muslims sometimes causes them some alienation at conferences

2. From the chats of international conferences:

-The interesting question: "Is your Western Galilee College is situated on the West Bank ?

-- "You must understand that the western culture in Israel is different from Russian

culture" therefore one article in English=N articles in Russian.

- "This is my visit card. Although we are not quite friends (Israel and Iran) welcome to Israel!"

As my first discipline in biology, I am iron hand at the rule "real change comes from within". Meaning always has to with setting regardless if meaning overlaps culture to culture, setting and meaning can change, maybe rarely though, where previous overlaps can fade.

If there were a place on Earth where leaves in trees one day never fell but decayed while attached to the branches, or the earth behaved in all situations as if it were flat, while in all others the opposite is universally true, what good is awareness of conditions elsewhere..what can they do, fix it? Even applications, such as engineering and science, stemmed from awareness of broader possibilities are not really appropriate for adaptive responses in situations, situations where perceptions form in language contrasts and confusion on new encounter....global is not a good word, any body be sick if part of it came from Australia and another from Sweden and another from America.

I think at any place that exists, things can lean one way or another and there is no standard defining 90 degrees for the point of observation. What is leaning in one setting, one day or century or epoch might change its inclination the next, overnight. Consistency is the agent sought by science, but its absence is not necessarily, as mathemtics teacher as I was a student in high school, claimed, always "the hobglobin of little minds". Displacements of nature, within cultures can create them. Einstein never resolved this so he declared (without clear explanation and inciting some ire in some modern elements) some notionsn among them the a fixed velocity of light regardless of relative motion of perspectives with respect to one another...this lead to the logical conclusion, supported also from experimental observation, that the universe was expanding; an idea upon which Einstein 'blew a fuse' and inserted mechanical obstruction factors in his own equations...his collegues apparently never understood his endeavors or his incompleteness. The language of science necessarily leaves interpretion at the level of symbolism open, some commonly taught broader universal notions can be reduced to state that what is 3 inches here maybe 1.5 inches there with no way to apply mathematics in a predictive like fashion.

I might never relate fully to the expression of a person from another culture with a different language without not only visiting where he is from, but being able to see differences in setting that might not even be within the awareness of myself or the other for revelation. The citizens of a country with more lions and tiger, more animals that bite, or more frequent personal challange might not see clearly differences or differences in modes of adaptation, even to the same circumstances.

A wife in one country, oppressed at home for her gender, might welcome the idea of equal pay for equal work and not intervention into her household affairs Foreign council should not insist on package deals as is often the case.

The what is's becoming this's and that's on new meeting can fuel disaster to natural mechanisms, nothing in nature is really still.

I do not know a good solution, as there appears to be also a need for understanding within intercultural communications; but apparently the assertion of definition for common meeting ground needs to be avoided as much as possible. Right now there is a need for reaction to express certain things in a universal way, even show with example how needless sufferring maybe effected from failed discovery or interpretation appropriate to their found setting, but once this is accomplished.......???? perhaps some aspects of, or relations themselves that are fulfilling should not continue along the trend of globalization as is happening.

Nicholas and Joseph - re: language correction. Nicholas, I occasionally edit articles in English for clarity and grammar - but someone pays me to do it. It is usually a well-funded institution or from someone's grant - or it is the author her/himself (i.e. out of pocket). Good translators and editors who earn their living full-time on that kind of work are paid as well (or as badly) as other professionals in the field. If the journal wants an article to have a level of English that is near-native level (=the typical category used in the field), then a translator/editor has to make the decision about whether the rate being offered is worth his or her time. Really complicated and even genious thoughts are hard enough to write well in one's own language; a translation or editing is even more challenging in that case. And not every journal will give someone the possibility to go back over the article to edit for language clarity. If a journal has 50 submission and is going to publish 6, then a reason like "the language is not clear enough" is, as Joseph said, reason to reject it without further consideration.

I suspect that journals with regular international contributions and international editors and boards are more likely to include that possibility when a reviewer is asked whether an article should be accepted as in / accepted with changes / revise and resubmit for reconsideration / reject. But journals rely heavily on outside readers to make the evaluation and recommendation - and reviewers reject articles for all sorts of reasons, not all of them seemingly logical. And it can be hard to find reviewers for many topics. And mistakes are easy to make:

A reviewer once recommended rejection of my article about a cinema film because the reviewer claimed that it was actually a made-for-TV film and I had not talked about television. "Somehow" the reviewer missed the fact that I was writing about a cinema film made in the 1950s - it is true that a different country had made a TV version of that film 50 years later, but that had nothing to do with my article. :) Add those kinds of human errors to possible language misunderstandings, and it can get difficult to get past the first review for a journal.

Gender, culture and language definitely have an impact on the way one interacts academically at the international level. In many countries, acceptance towards females interacting academically, is less ! Besides the external attire is different in different countries !

Dear Dr. Jaya Kurhekar, you're absolutely right!

Historical and social prejudices and stereotypes have a very negative impact on the

academical relations.

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/340401-my-native-land?chapter=1

The poem is about my wandering through our multi-cultural world..

Jaya - have you heard of anyone not wanting to interact outside their own cultural group because their normal choice of clothing would stand out? We often have an institutional 'trend' we follow and tend to wear similar clothes to our colleagues (I think so as not to stand out). 'Western' dress is very common around the world, but I regularly see for example Saudi men in traditional dress at international conferences. Women however tend (mostly from outside Middle Eastern culture) to adopt western dress or a 'westernised' version of their own clothing. Does this gender-culture difference raise issues of travel, socialisation etc? As a man, I am a little more wary of striking up a conversation with a woman in traditional dress, rather than a women who dresses in a more 'western' way - partly because I do not want to cause offence or cross cultural taboos if the male stranger/female interaction might be viewed as somehow inappropriate. That said however, I also want to believe that those who interact on an international level would be more flexible in such meetings. I am sure this is normally so, but many are strongly influenced by their cultural ties .... after all, it is where we go home to.

Of course, attire is definately not an indication of either personality or braininess ! It does though present a perceived barrier & an indication that someone (whether or not by choice) is sticking to a cultural or religious marker. Of course, this then commonly triggers the stereotypes we all carry in our heads & communication is often stilted until a mutual trust is established.

If however we all wore the same tie (men only of course), then we would recognise each other instantly for the jolly fine chaps we are ....

Is there still a whiff of old school tie in the air, & what is it like not to have one ? Do different specialities have their own versions & can you just get one off the peg, or do you still have to deliver milk to the common rooms, clean studies & take cold showers to get one ?

In light of the discussion raised here, I'm going to do a little experiment, I will put on two articles I wrote in the Hebrew language to look at the amount of views and downloads.

I think it takes a very strong person to step outside the norms of their group & there is an unspoken implication (in a multitude of contexts), that if you break with this norm, then the 'normal' folk will shun you & you won't get on.

I am not an anarchist by nature, but my take is that unless some of us don't swim against the tide, then we perpetuate the past.. I only wear the tie if there is an appropriate occasion ;-)

Yovav - I had a look for the Hebrew texts on your profile, so what is the experiment? My publications are in the English language & hardly anybody looks at those ... because they are boring. I think you will have to find a way to determine if it is the language or subject that fails to draw an audience :-)

Larissa - firstly, I don't think anyones publications are in vain & platforms like RG & Academia.edu definately broaden the exposure of our work. It is interesting that you write of people who won't read in English .... how can they claim to interact on a global level, given that @96% of academic literature is written in the language? So - question: what obligation do we have to interact globally .... it might be fun meeting all those foreign folks, but couldn't we just stay at home and watch tv ?

I don't believe we have to be language experts, but surely we have to make some effort to acknowledge the work of others as best we can (given barriers of technology, language, culture etc.). Otherwise, don't we become the big fish in a small pond, legends in our own lunchbreaks ... & other objects of delusional reference?

Nicholas - First you are humble 432 Views that quite a few people. Secondly, I posted the text simultaneously in two different language (Different titles) and I intend to see what difference the amount and type text readers.

@ Nicholas, what you have said is true ! Attire plays a very important role in your culture . There is a taboo going away from your culture! But it's also true that apart from that, the intelligence or application of knowledge does not , in any way change with the attire ! Language too, gives an inferiority complex, if not very fluent or perfect and at international level, people try to avoid particular interactions!

@Nicholas, I can understand your wariness with reference to talking to women particularly, in traditional attire, but I wonder whether it comes across like that ! As for us, sari is our routine attire! But yes, thinking from your point of view, it may be a fact :)) ha ha, we are interacting internationally on RG and see what impact my culture has had on your mind ! Hope you don't mind my saying that :))

Dear Dr. Jaya Kurhekar , I got a great impression of the sari during the tour in Sri Lanka. Many Israel women bought a sari. From the times of Indira Gandhi Soviet peoples expressed their deep respect and sincere admiration for India's national dress. In particular, I remember well it was in Moscow among students. It is interesting to note that Stalin's daughter Svetlana was wearing a sari.

@ Joseph, thank you so much for sharing that with me ! Sari is our national dress and it looks beautiful ! However , it is interesting to note the impact, a traditional attire creates !

I think all three variables matter. Even in the same language, accents do matter. I speak a good level of standard English (I think/hope) but at a training event I attended a couple of years ago, a colleague fed back he found my accent 'off putting'- I am born and bred Ghanaian.

Gender does play a role especially in academic contexts where gender is a big thing in a particular culture. I doubt if a lady academic will get the same reaction and reception in some Arab environments as they would in the West for instance. (I may be wrong)

@Gideon, you are right ! Responses depend on mentality, acceptance, prejudices, etc, list is long !

I would like to share my unpublished article on Gender Differentiated Benefits in the Workplace. It might be relevant in answering your question. Suggesting to read attached pdf on Managing Workplace Diversity Issues and Challenges.

Thanks for sharing this Florencia - it is interesting to see towards the end, your mention of our mis-match assumption that being equal means being the same. I think that this is a common misconception and is interchangeable: we can give everyone equal considerations, opportunities etc, but this does not mean we should treat everybody the same (we all have different attributes, needs & considerations). Likewise, if we treat everybody the same, this does not necessarily mean that we create equal opportunities. I can say that everybody has the right to apply for the post of President, but what % actually have the skills, resources, support etc. to do so?

Good contribution :-)

Dear Dr. Florencia Maldia! Topical article on key issues in Israel!

Thank you Joseph Dubrovkin for directing me to your views given above. I agree with what you cited.

I was surprised by the focus Nicholas places on poster sessions. I think by reducing ones talking points to a poster has been quite off-putting to me as an educator. I have only once did a poster session and I did that only because I did not have to travel for it. (It was on my A & M campus.)

There is so much that can be misunderstood by the viewer from another country of any one poster. We come with our own ideas, images and symbols in hand. A poster may be good a provoking an initial interest in a paper or a topic, but only the reading of the article or a visit to a lengthy lecture, workshop, or long format can help us avoid a lot of which is off-putting by first glances, visuals, misuse and abuse of language.

Language is culturally loaded. So are each of us.