Does Science Need a Global Language?

 

When the global scientific community erupted with news that the elusive Higgs boson had likely been found, it was the culmination of extraordinary collaboration among scientists from more than one hundred countries. A new era of multinationalism and cooperative reach in science had arrived. Yet global research is still communicated almost entirely in a single language—English. Is this a good thing?
 

In Does Science Need a Global Language?, Scott L. Montgomery seeks to answer this question by investigating the phenomenon of global English in science, how and why it came about, the forms in which it appears, what advantages and disadvantages it brings, and what its future might be. He also examines the consequences of a global tongue, considering especially emerging and developing nations, where research is still at a relatively early stage and English is not yet firmly established.
 

Throughout the book, he includes important insights from a broad range of perspectives in linguistics, history, education, geopolitics, and more. Each chapter includes striking and revealing anecdotes from the front-line experiences of today’s scientists. What he uncovers will challenge readers to rethink their assumptions about the future of science.

 

Scott L. Montgomery is a consulting geologist, independent scholar, and author, most recently of The Powers That Be: Global Energy for the Twenty-First Century and Beyond and The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science and Science in Translation, both published by the University of Chicago Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington.