BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[First Aspect]

From the quote above….⬆️

All of the journal publications associated with his research are in English, so he has no concerns about his research being accessible.

Sure. But some of the publications ought to have referenced the thesis, as should future publications by the same or other people building on that research.

The thesis shouldn't be a self contained and self aggrandising document, because it is paid for and is for the benefit of future researchers - most frequently in the same group.

 

[briantrumpet]

You sound like the Spanish nationalists that used to berate those whose first language was not Spanish for not using Spanish.

Were they talking about scientific theses?

If I were talking about Welsh in Wales, you would have a point. I've already said I think that's a very valid linguistic aim, but I don't think this is going to move the dial on that, but is not conducive to making scientific knowledge more widely accessible.

 

[C R]

Were they talking about scientific theses?

Yes.

 

[Psamathe]

It does, though here we're talking about % trends in usage of specific languages, rather than the changes within languages themselves, which I think you're referring to, and is a universal phenomenon.

For the time being, the language of science sharing is English, and it's likely to stay that way for quite some time, I'd suggest.

Is there also an aspect of "ownership"?

In my day a discovery made eg by a PhD research where grant funded from public money was in the public domain. But these days so often a public money funded research project seems to end-up being the ownership of the researcher who goes set-up up their own private company exploiting those patents they now own, nothing back to the public who funded the discovery.

So if a discovery is reported in a less widespread language and the research repeated, later research resulting in patents, are patent lawyers expected to trawl back through all less widespread language publications to verify who actually discovered whatever?