The importance of languages ​​in scientific publications

The visibility and impact of scientific publications are not only guaranteed by the reputation of the institution that hosts them, the publishing companies that provide support, or their location within the various international indexes and rankings. These are undoubtedly an important indicator, although they do not per se guarantee that their originals are accessible to the entire scientific community.

A publication that is only available in one language (Spanish, French, German, Russian ...), will only be understandable to the academic community that has sufficient linguistic skills in that language. For example, according to Thomson Reuters®, only 6% of researchers worldwide publish articles in Spanish, less than 1% do so in Arabic, compared to more than 79% in English. You may also be interested in what does wtw mean in texting

In this sense, a magazine that makes its articles available in at least two languages ​​-one of them necessarily being English-, exponentially increases its reach and visibility, ergo possibilities of reading and citation, which is definitely one of the main interests of every journal: Provide a space for high-level debate that is visible to other members of the academic community. Likewise, bilingual and multilingual publications will attract more and better research, which will proportionally affect the quality of the publication.

On the other hand, publications that are available in two or more languages ​​allow them to be read by more people and contribute to improving the dissemination of scientific knowledge as a source of possibilities for the development of societies, providing the added value of the availability of access to knowledge to the public, private, non-governmental institutions, associative and community networks and, ultimately, the whole of society in general.

The Comunicar Magazine,  for example, has all its articles published in Spanish -their mother tongue- and English -the lingua franca of the investigation-; but also, to increase its visibility and Academic SEO, it makes available the titles, abstracts, and keywords in Portuguese and Chinese, which broadens the visibility of the journal in other fields and contexts. Likewise, with the same vision of increasing outreach, Comunicar also has blogs in Spanish, Portuguese and English, with general and multilingual academic social networks and a School of Authors in Spanish and English.

In short, although the English language has monopolized almost 95% of scientific publications and has become the lingua franca of research, this does not mean that the mother tongues of each journal are not defended, since the publications are first due to their own community. However, publishing in at least two languages ​​of international scientific recognition guarantees a better diffusion and visibility of the authors, research, and publication.

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