SURVEY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROBLEMS FACING THE RESEARCH WORKER

A questionnaire survey was used to find out whether the language barrier was an important hindrance to researchers. The linguistic ability of users of the literature appeared to vary with age, those in the upper age groups being more proficient; also the linguistic ability of social scientists appeared to be appreciably lower than that of scientists and technologists. Many researchers had come across papers in foreign languages that they would like to have read, but often no action to obtain a translation was taken. Very few people tried to locate existing translations and many were dissatisfied with the lack of information about existing services. The situation in general is not satisfactory and has not improved since a previous survey on similar lines was carried out in 1965.