Google Translate Facilitates Conference Abstracts’ Acceptance, But Not Invitations to Deliver an Oral Presentation

Abstract

AbstractRemoving the language barrier could bring great benefits not only to the scientific community. Therefore, it is necessary to strive to improve both the tools and procedures in which these tools are used, to ensure a reliable exchange of knowledge. The authors try to find out whether the existing and widely available technology (Google Translate) contributes to the facilitation of knowledge sharing among scientists. Humanity has been trying to construct and improve the technology of universal real-time translation for a long time. For many, it was inspired by scifi works, in which, probably, this idea appeared already in the 1940s (see Leinster’s “First contact”). This is an important topic because the language of science has long since become English, and for most of the scientific community it is not the mother tongue. Furthermore, we are now talking about the English languages of the world, or “world Englishes”, not to mention those who say “the language of science is bad English”. The paper tells a story which on the one hand constitutes a thoughtful anecdote, on the other may offer a good introduction to a serious scientific study. As it stands now, the main argument for including it is the story itself, with which we encourage further studies to scale our ideas in terms of a broader sample and comparability.