ABSTRACT
Every field of technical endeavor, where it aims at a multinational audience, has seen its journals, books, conferences, symposia, lectures, workshops, and internet usage shift to the English language over the past several decades. Yet English is by no means the first world-scale language of science, and any close look at such languages of the past will show they have not always been kind to their foreign users. Though a world language provides new opportunity for scientists in a host of ways, it brings challenges and barriers as well. But for speakers of English as a foreign language (EFL), with less skill and confidence, the noted benefits can be wholly inverted. Related to fairness is a second issue: the power of a global language to marginalize other tongues and their speakers. Language programs in group 3 countries, being fairly new or still rudimentary, often do not have enough qualified teachers and are less effective.
