For decades, English has served as the global lingua franca of science. The benefits are obvious: researchers from different countries can communicate, collaborate & share findings through a common language. But every lingua franca creates winners & losers.
For many researchers around the world, English is not merely the language in which they communicate their science. It’s an additional hurdle they must clear before their science can even be evaluated.
A study by Tatsuya Amano and colleagues, published in PLOS Biology, set out to quantify something that many academics have experienced for years: the hidden costs of being a non-native English speaker in science.
The Study
Amano and colleagues surveyed 908 researchers in environmental sciences from countries representing a range of linguistic & economic backgrounds. The researchers compared the effort required to carry out common scientific activities in English, including:
- Reading journal articles
- Writing research papers
- Preparing conference presentations
- Disseminating findings to different audiences
- Participating in international conferences
The goal was not simply to document perceptions. It was to estimate how language background affects the time, effort & opportunities available to researchers throughout their careers.
The Findings
The results reveal what the authors describe as the “manifold costs” of working in a scientific system dominated by English.
Researchers who were non-native English speakers consistently reported investing more effort in scientific activities conducted in English than native speakers. This was especially true for early-career researchers.
The costs extended across multiple areas:
- More time reading academic texts
- More effort writing papers for publication
- More work preparing presentations
- Additional burden communicating research in multiple languages
- Reduced participation in international conferences
- Greater reluctance to give oral presentations in English at conferences
In other words, two researchers may have equally strong scientific ideas, but one may need substantially more time & cognitive effort simply to operate within the system.
Why This Matters
Language researchers have long distinguished between Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP), a distinction associated with Jim Cummins.
Many highly proficient L2 users can communicate fluently in everyday situations yet still face challenges when working with dense academic language, specialised disciplinary conventions & high-stakes writing.
The study also aligns with work on linguistic injustice in academia. Scholars such as Anna Kristina Hultgren have argued that English-medium academic systems often reward language proficiency alongside scientific expertise, even when language ability is not the object being assessed.
From an ELT perspective, the findings are a reminder that language proficiency is not simply a neutral skill. It can function as a form of access, opportunity & gatekeeping.
Consider a researcher from Brazil, Turkey or Vietnam. Writing a publishable article in English often involves mastering not only grammar & vocabulary, but disciplinary rhetoric, citation conventions, reviewer expectations & academic style. That’s a far bigger task than “knowing English”.
The study isn’t really about English teaching. It’s about fairness.
It asks us to consider how much knowledge, talent & innovation may be lost when brilliant researchers must devote additional effort simply because science operates primarily through a language they did not grow up speaking.
Teacher Takeaways?
- Advanced proficiency is not the same as academic proficiency. Learners may appear fluent while still struggling with specialised disciplinary language.
- Language learning costs are often invisible. The extra time spent reading, writing & revising may not reflect weaker ability but greater linguistic demands.
- English opens doors globally, but we should recognise that access is not distributed equally. Language education can help reduce, though not eliminate, these barriers.
If English remains the global language of science, what responsibilities do academic institutions, publishers & the wider scientific community have to reduce the burden this creates?
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