THE FOREIGN‐LANGUAGE PROBLEM FACING SCIENTISTS AND TECHNOLOGISTS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM—REPORT OF A RECENT SURVEY
| Pages | 117-130 |
| Published date | 01 February 1967 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026425 |
| Date | 01 February 1967 |
| Author | D.N. WOOD |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
THE FOREIGN-LANGUAGE PROBLEM FACING
SCIENTISTS AND TECHNOLOGISTS IN THE
UNITED KINGDOM—REPORT OF A RECENT SURVEY
D.
N. WOOD
National Lending Library for
Science
and Technology
The foreign-language barrier facing British scientists is a function of
a, the amount and value of foreign scientific literature produced; b, the
linguistic ability of the people wishing to read it; and c, the availability
and effectiveness of translation services. To obtain quantitative data on
these points the NLL has recently conducted a survey amongst scientists
and librarians in the United Kingdom and the present paper presents the
more important results.
The survey has shown that the language problem is of considerable
magnitude and
is
common to the majority of scientists and technologists.
The languages creating the most difficulty are Russian, German, and
Japanese. It has also indicated that local translation facilities are not parti-
cularly effective and that, as far
as
national facilities are concerned, British
scientists are largely unaware of existing services which might help them
to overcome their difficulties.
The results of the investigation suggest a number of lines of action
which the appropriate authorities might follow. The most important
would seem to be the publishing of an international index to translations
and the creation within the United Kingdom of a centralized Japanese
translation service.
INTRODUCTION
A LARGE PROPORTION of the world's scientific and technical informa-
tion is now published in languages other than English. Moreover, as the
underdeveloped areas (three-quarters of mankind) catch up technologically
with the more developed one-quarter, it seems likely that the proportion
of foreign-language literature will increase rather than decrease.
To obtain some quantitative data on the foreign-language problem facing
English-speaking scientists, two analyses have been carried out. The first is
a
language breakdown of the references listed in the 1965 issues of the more
important abstracting and indexing publications, and the second is a lan-
guage analysis of the 24,000 scientific and technical periodicals currently
being received by
the
NLL.* The results of these investigations are presented
in Tables
1
and
2
and show the relative importance of the various languages
as
media for recording scientific information. The
figures
should be studied,
however, in the light of the following. In the first case, the assumption was
* As in October 1966.
117
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