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Scientific Globish versus scientific English

The proposed adoption of ‘scientific Globish’ as a sim- simplified grammar [1], and phonetic spelling [1]. (ii) Jour-
plified language standard for scholarly communication nal referees would not discriminate on the basis of language
may appeal to authors who have difficulty with English proficiency [2]. Consequently, the dissemination of academic
proficiency. However, Globish might not justify the knowledge would be greatly facilitated and scientists from
hopes being pinned on it and might open the door to non-English-speaking nations would not feel marginalized.
further deterioration of the quality of English-language Despite the attractiveness these proposals may have for
scientific writing. international authors who have difficulty publishing their
work in English, a closer look suggests that Globish might
There is an old joke about a Georgian scientist who had to not justify the hopes being pinned on it and that it might
lecture in English at an international conference. During a open the door to further deterioration of the quality of
coffee break he asked his American colleague, ‘How was my English scientific writing.
talk?’ ‘Very good’, replied the American, ‘I understood very Many of us may have noticed that the English we use to
much of it. And you know what? I’d never thought that write our papers, notably experimental reports, is already
Georgian was so similar to English.’ a kind of Globish. Because scientific English is now the
This joke is not an example of the finest in Russian property of specialists all around the world, its grammar,
humor, but like every joke, it has its element of truth. The lexis, and style are constantly influenced by alien linguistic
truth is that without a solid command of the English habits [3]. It is already simplified in more ways than one:
language, you undermine your chances of professional the vocabularies of scientific disciplines are largely techni-
success, particularly if you wish to make your voice heard cal (and thus fairly limited), the use of tenses is restricted
to the broadest possible audience. The Georgian scientist (e.g., the future perfect is almost never found in research
in the joke could be replaced with a Russian, a German, or texts), and the same expressions are repeated over and
perhaps a Chinese scientist – in fact, anyone who has not over (‘In this study, we examine . . .’, ‘Quantification was
had the advantage of being born a native English speaker. done by . . .’, ‘The results indicate that . . .’, etc.). Does it
Proficiency in English, as in any other language, can be really need to be simplified any further? We still call the
acquired by only one means – learning. We learn, therefore body of published knowledge the ‘scientific literature’, a
we are. Real learning presupposes evolution of our knowl- term reminding us that the standards of academic writing
edge, skills, and views, a constant movement upward in our are expected to be at least no lower than those accepted for
understanding of the complexities of things. Learning is literary works. What sort of literature would we have if
instrumental in shaping our brains and our careers. In all people were encouraged to use only ‘a limited vocabulary,
spheres of human activity, including languages and science, familiar words, and short sentences’ [2]? What would be
the rule is the same: the better you learn, the more you left of the beauty and power of the living English language,
achieve. so admired by its educated foreign lovers?
Recently, Momen [1] and Norris [2] published what seem The best writing is as simple and as complex as the
to be attempts to relieve scientists of the burden of learning writer’s message demands. Simple sentences are perfect
English. Both authors, one a non-native and the other a for expressing simple ideas such as ‘the Earth is round’, but
native English speaker, argue for the development of a complex ideas or a description of a multistep experimental
simplified scientific English, termed ‘Scientish’ [1] or ‘scien- procedure sometimes requires fairly complex grammar as
tific Globish’ [2], as a language standard for scholarly com- well as a large vocabulary. After all, scientific reporting
munication. The term ‘Globish’ denotes the international aims to transfer advanced knowledge and skills. It is
auxiliary language proposed by Jean-Paul Nerrière, which difficult to see how this transfer could be possible with
relies on a vocabulary of 1500 English words and a subset of only a basic amount of English at one’s disposal – except if
standard English grammar [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ one was reporting something that was not so advanced.
Globish_(Nerriere)]. The chief benefits of scientific Globish Would not the next logical step be to relax the criteria used
are thought to be these. (i) Globish would be much easier to to evaluate the scientific significance of manuscripts, espe-
learn than English owing to its limited vocabulary [2], cially for scientists in countries where research funding is
even scarcer than manuals of English?
Corresponding author: Tychinin, D.N. (tychinin@ibppm.sgu.ru).
‘Clear enough’ and ‘good enough’ [2] cannot be equated.
Keywords: English language; Globish; scientific writing; editing; publishing. Consider: ‘The samples were analyzed using gas
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TIMI-998; No. of Pages 2

Forum: Science & Society Trends in Microbiology xxx xxxx, Vol. xxx, No. x

chromatography’; ‘To analyze the samples, gas chroma- consultant (not necessarily a native English speaker) who
tography was used’; ‘On analyzing the samples, the levels would help authors to write and revise their manuscripts
of naphthalene were found to be high.’ Although the mean- in good English. Language bias could be reduced if editors
ing of each sentence is ‘clear enough’, each is grammatically and referees follow the suggestions offered by Eastwood
unsound because of the dangling modifier it contains (in et al.: editors can help to quantify the perception of bias
bold), and each therefore is bad enough (for more on dan- against authors by analyzing the rejections recommended
gling modifiers, see [4,5]). by their reviewers, can encourage reviewers not to discrim-
There is no pressing need for scientific Globish because inate on the basis of language or other cultural factors, and
the educational literature is replete with books dealing can grade reviews on the basis of constructive criticism
extensively with the principles of grammatical and readily offered; as a further measure, masked copies of reviewers’
intelligible academic writing [4–7]. Of special interest is comments can be shared among reviewers [8]. As justly
J.M. Williams’ Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace [5] – pointed out by Drubin and Kellogg [9], all members of the
a thought-provoking study guide that shows by numerous scientific community – authors, editors, referees, native
examples how sentences can be complex and yet perfectly and non-native English speakers – should work together to
clear. The globalized world has facilitated access to educa- optimize scientific communication. But for such a collabo-
tion, and an array of resources for English-language wri- rative effort to succeed, it is vital that all parties concerned
ters can now be found on the Internet by using a search recognize the indispensability of learning and teaching the
engine with these and similar keywords: ‘scientific writ- actual English language, with its unlimited potential to
ing’, ‘scientific English’, ‘guide to grammar’, ‘writing tips’, convey human ideas, in preference to something that could
and ‘help with English’. Advice on correct grammar, punc- only be used as a crutch to hobble on. Serious language
tuation, and style can also be obtained directly from native learning would be a far better way to handle English-
English experts who volunteer their services at question- related problems in scientific publishing, and the English
and-answer websites (e.g., Allexperts or Answerway). language would be saved from unnecessary surgical inter-
Therefore, everyone has ample opportunity to learn. ventions.
Concerning peer-review language bias, it does create a
climate of suspicion. Ironically, the worst complainers about References
English usage appear to reside in non-English-speaking 1 Momen, H. (2009) Language and multilingualism in scientific
communication. Singapore Med. J. 50, 654–656
parts of the globe, and some of these ‘language watchdogs’
2 Norris, V. (2013) Scientific Globish: clear enough is good enough. Trends
write in horrible English like ‘Finaly the authors should to Microbiol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2013.07.002
correct there english be fore the editors can to accept it’. That 3 Netzel, R. et al. (2003) The way we write: country-specific variations of
said, experience indicates that referees’ critiques of English the English language in the biomedical literature. EMBO Rep. 4,
are constructive more often than not. In addition, no one can 446–451
4 Day, R.A. (2000) Scientific English: A Guide for Scientists and Other
make any guarantees about the acceptability of every paper
Professionals. (2nd edn), Universities Press
written in scientific Globish because proficiency in a lan- 5 Williams, J.M. (2000) Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. (6th edn),
guage implies much more than familiarity with words and Addison Wesley Longman
idioms. Most of the hassle that editors and referees have 6 Peat, J. et al. (2002) Scientific Writing: Easy When You Know How. BMJ
with manuscripts comes not from errors in usage but from a Books
7 Glasman-Deal, H. (2010) Science Research Writing for Non-Native
lack of coherent organization of thoughts into sentences and Speakers of English. Imperial College Press
of sentences into paragraphs (https://www.soils.org/files/ 8 Eastwood, S. et al. (2001) Addressing English-language bias in science:
publications/editor-handbook/editors-handbook.pdf). how journals can support authors whose native language is not English.
Should we, then, also simplify the style requirements, so Sci. Ed. 24, 47
that the feelings of writers with insufficient thought-orga- 9 Drubin, D.G. and Kellogg, D.R. (2012) English as the universal language
of science: opportunities and challenges. Mol. Biol. Cell 23, 1399
nizing skills would not be hurt?
Instead of switching to Globish, non-anglophone univer- 0966-842X/$ – see front matter ß 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
sities and institutes might opt for employing an in-house http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2013.07.004 Trends in Microbiology xx (2013) 1–2