The Relevance of English in Colombian Scientific Research Awareness

Jimy Alexander Cortes,Ivan Dario Arellano

doi:10.5539/elt.v10n5p127

Abstract

Even though the majority of Colombian professors are also involved in research, they have limitations in their English language skills that separate them from the rest of the scientific society. Evidently, these limitations have become an obstacle in the awareness of professors’ modest, but no less important, research work. In order to carry out this study, we selected three remarkable higher education institutions of Pereira, Risaralda in Colombia. We used collected data from 2012 to 2015. A quantitative analysis of the number of articles in English in comparison to Spanish was done. Even though there has been an increasing number of articles in English, they are still limited. This research suggests an approach to evaluate the hypothesis raised by the authors that states that the low English-language proficiency of the scientists is affecting the visibility of Colombian and, overall, Latin American science. We propose to increase the visibility of Colombian science by publishing research papers in both languages, Spanish and in English. Finally, Latin American English writing skills require attention from their own governments to increase the awareness and contribution of these countries in a globalized world.

Highlights

English is the de facto language to give a speech in a conference and to write and publish a scientific paper
We propose to increase the visibility of Colombian science by publishing research papers in both languages, Spanish and in English
There are some ideas to mitigate the low visibility of Colombian and, overall, Latin American science

Summary

Introduction

English is the de facto language to give a speech in a conference and to write and publish a scientific paper. Latin American science has been affected, in some manner, due to the evident low proficiency in this language and Colombia, as part of this continent, is not out of the problem It is not known what the most important English skill is in order to succeed in international research: writing, reading, listening or speaking. Submitting a paper to a journal that publishes in English is a challenge all Latin American scientists face, but they do not feel confident to do it due to their low proficiency. Vol 10, No 5; 2017 per 550 words which takes 6 days to translate (Elsevier, 2015) Such a situation, Journals in English should widely support authors from non-English speaking countries to allow them introduce their science internationally in a non-profit way as do some associations seeking to attract more public from Latin America. Research expectations are to raise awareness for the English proficiency issue and, in this way, to invite Colombian scientists to accept the challenge to enhance their English language proficiency

Method

Results and Discussion

Conclusion