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SUMMARY:Linguistic discrimination\, processing fluency\, and the foreign l
 anguage effect in science - Uwe Peters (Leverhulme Centre for the Future o
 f Intelligence\, Cambridge)
DTSTART:20230125T130000Z
DTEND:20230125T143000Z
UID:TALK196318@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jacob Stegenga
DESCRIPTION:The English language now dominates scientific communications. 
 Yet\, many scientists are not English native speakers. Their proficiency i
 n the language is often more limited\, and their scientific contributions 
 (e.g.\, manuscripts) in English may frequently contain linguistic features
  that disrupt the fluency of a reader's or listener's information processi
 ng even when the contributions are understandable. Scientific gatekeepers 
 (e.g.\, journal reviewers) sometimes cite these features to justify negati
 ve decisions on manuscripts. Such justifications may rest on the prima fac
 ie plausible assumption that linguistic characteristics that hinder fast a
 nd easy understandability of scientific contributions are epistemically un
 desirable in science. I shall raise some doubts about this assumption by d
 rawing on empirical research on processing fluency. I also argue that dire
 cting scientists with English as a foreign language toward approaching nat
 ive-level English (as science journals commonly do) can have the negative 
 consequence of reducing their potential to make scientific belief formatio
 n more reliable. These points suggest that one seemingly compelling justif
 ication for linguistically discriminating against potentially many scienti
 fic contributions in non-native English is questionable and that the commo
 n insistence by scientific gatekeepers on native-like English can be epist
 emically harmful to science.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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