Specialized Communication and Popularization in English PDF

lOMoARcPSD|2316546 Riassunto Specialized Communication and popularization in english Letteratura inglese ii (Università degli Studi di Palermo) Scansiona per aprire su Studocu...

lOMoARcPSD|2316546 Riassunto Specialized Communication and popularization in english Letteratura inglese ii (Università degli Studi di Palermo) Scansiona per aprire su Studocu Studocu non è sponsorizzato o supportato da nessuna università o ateneo. Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 RIASSUNTO – SPECIALIZED COMMUNICATION AND POPULARIZATION IN ENGLISH Giuliana Garzone Cap.1 – LANGUAGE FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES AND SPECIALIZED COMMUNICATION: AN INTRODUCTION 1.1 Opening remarks The last few decades have seen an acceleration of progress in science and technology and an increasing specialization in all disciplinary and professional fields. Exchanges among insiders have become ever more frequent, they occur in formal events, seminars, conferences, meetings, conference calls, web conferences. All this has multiplied opportunities for discussion and exchange of views. Journals are now published online, so this increased the circulation of scholarly articles. Language and discourse have evolved to suit the needs of the scientific and professional community in this effort of communication. On the one hand, the degree of specialization of conversations among scholars has increased the growing specificity of disciplines, making them impenetrable for anyone except scholars belonging to the relevant specific communities. On the other hand, scientific advances are having an inevitable impact on people’s life, giving rise to an overspill of specialized language into everyday conversations, so this lead to popularization. There are a lot of popularized materials: books, newspaper and magazine articles, aimed at familiarizing the general public with specialist notions. 1.1.1 Research perspectives Starting from the latter decades of the XX century research on specialized communication has become more and more active in a variety of disciplinary fields, the research projects aim to explore different aspects of specialized discourse. In linguistics, research has focused on language use, on text generation and reception, and on communicative strategies in a wide range of disciplinary, scientific, technical and professional fields. More recently research has punt into question the notion that “specialized communication is absolutely referential (non emotive, non conative, non poetic)”, on the contrary, all texts in specialized communication contain an important persuasive component. 1.2 Languages for specific purposes: distinctive characters Languages for specific purposes or domain-specific- languages (special languages, micro languages, technolets) are contextual-functional varieties of the language, defined with reference to the professional, disciplinary or technical field to which they pertain (for example the language of the law, of medicine, economics, politics, marketing – more delicate distinctions: in medicine, the language of pediatrics, cardiology…). De Saussure saw language variation as the domain of investigation of a distinctive branch of linguistics, the external linguistics. The introduction of the notion “special languages” is also due to De Saussure himself, who used it to refer to “juridical language, scientific terminology”. The acronym is: LSP. Scholars’ attention has shifted from lexico-grammatical and textual aspects to discursive and communicative levels, so today expressions like SPECIALIZED DISCOURSE or SPECIALIZED COMMUNICATION are often preferred. Language is now seen as a socio-cultural polysystem or diasystem, a system which is not unitary and uniform, but rather made up of sub-systems all sharing characteristics, but each characterized by some peculiar distinctive features. The three main dimensions of variation: diatopic dimension (which refers to geographical variation), diastratic dimension (which refers to social variation), diaphasic dimension (which refers to variation in language use as a function of the context and of the message). Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 Domain-specific languages are the result of diaphasic variation. Languages for specific purposes are not subject to any special grammatical and phonological rules, special languages are characterized by a tendency to give preference to certain morpho-syntactic forms, as well as some distinctive discursive and pragmatic features. Each LSP has its own specific vocabulary, in addition to that of ordinary language, and this makes it less easily accessible for those in language community who do not have adequate background knowledge in the field. Special languages qualify as subcodes. (initially research  on lexical aspects, then on textual and rethorical aspects) Specialized communication is now seen as semiotically complex sociolinguistics varieties of the language connected with a wide range of cultural, disciplinary and professional contexts and situations. 1.2.1 Vertical and horizontal variation and registers Horizontal variation in language = it is possible to identify a core of distinctive linguistic features which are common to all types of specialized discourse, while in each one there will be recurrent linguistic traits that are peculiar to it. Vertical variation in language = inside each single domain there is a wide scope for variation in terms of degree of specialization of technicality in language use, depending on number of factors, the most important one is the tenor of discourse of a given communicative event: who is talking to whom and for what purpose. THE MODEL PROPOSED BY CLOITRE AND SHINN (1985): In terms of production and reception we distinguish 4 different types of LSP: - INTRASPECIALIST LEVEL: communication from specialist to specialist within the same disciplinary field (Linguistics – used with my colleague, from economist to economist…) - INTERSPECIALIST LIVEL: communication from specialist to specialist across disciplinary fields. (from sociologist to economist) - DIDACTIC/PEDAGOGICAL LEVEL: (in a class), communication from specialist to pupil or trainee (from professor to pupil) - POPULAR LEVEL: communication from specialist to layperson, LSP can be changed because of the audience, you won’t have an exchange among specialists, there are exchanges between specialist and ordinary people  this changes typology of LSP, it is called POPULARIZATION. (from expert to general public) This model is based on one sociolinguistic criterion, the participation framework, the participants in the event and the relationships between them, with no reference to the nature of the texts. It can be used also to the soft sciences. There will be variations of degree of formality, which are strictly dependent on the relationship between the speaker and the addressee. The registers of language are usually defined as code varieties available to the speaker affording her/him the possibility of choosing the kind of language that is most suitable for a given communicative act, with variations in lexico-grammar as well as in style. According to Halliday’s theory, register is related to three main relevsant aspects of the context of situation: - THE FIELD OF DISCOURSE  the type of social action that is taking place, its topic and participants and the purpose of the communicative event. - THE TENOR OF DISCOURSE  the role of participants, their relationship(power relationship that is unique), the tone. - THE MODE OF DISCOURSE  the way in which the text functions in relation to the situation, related to the medium (written, oral or a combination of them), the channel (face to face communication, cmc), and the genre. You analyze field, tenor, mode  we understand if we are looking at popular level, interspecialist levels… Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 CAP.2 – SPECIALIZED (OR TECHNICAL) LEXICON 2.1 Non arbitrariness of scientific vocabulary: historical perspectives The lexical component is in actual fact the linguistic element that sets special languages most evidently apart from general language. Vocabulary is an access key to specialized discourse. Technical vocabulary differs from lexicon in ordinary language in that it is not arbitrary. In natural language, every linguistic sign is the result of the association of a signifier and a signified, the bond is unmotivated, so it is arbitrary. The signifiers result from historical evolution. No single individual has the power to introduce a new word, IN SPECIALIZED DISCOURSE, most specialized terms are introduced by means of an act of free will and deliberate choice: terms are created to meet the naming needs arising because of the introduction of new concepts and new categories or new phenomena. (a lot of terms introduced after the birth of modern science and technology) The evolution of scientific thought led to the evolution of linguistic resources used to express it, in a slow process which saw an increasingly frequent recourse to nominalization. Thus, in a few decades’ time English acquired adequate resources to be used in modern scientific and technical communication. 2.2 Characteristics of domain-specific vocabulary It is difficult to identify some basic common characteristics because of the immense number of terms that have accumulated over time, the wide diversification in their origins. 2.2.1 Monosemy and precision In specialized texts each single domain terms are monosemic, while in ordinary communication the meaning of a word is often polysemic and is determined only by the context where it occurs (lexical units often feature or take on a degree of connotation, emotional associations). Terms must always mean “one thing and one thing only”, both on the paradigmatic and on the syntagmatic level. The MONOREFERENTIALITY (or monosemy) is made possible by the fact that the adoption of a term in LSP is the result of a deliberate intention. In specialized domains the semantic value of a term is the result of stipulation among members of the relevant language community and is often based on a semantic convention, a sort of implicit agreement among experts. Terminology CAN change in time, history evolves, progress evolves and improves with new concepts and new ideas. So the notions of PRECISION and MONOREFERENTIALITY cannot be applied in absolute terms, they are aspirations, and should also be looked at in a diachronic perspective. When new terms are introduced, old ones do not necessary fall into disuse. In other cases, progress does not create new words (force, atom), it utilizes some existing ones and shifts their meanings. Terminologies are artificial and survive thanks to the consensus of a restricted community. 2.2.2. Reinforcing precision: definitions Scholars define the specific meanings of certain key terms they use, in order to avoid all possible misunderstandings. The writer intends to provide a specific technical definition for those who are not specialists of the specific field, or to clarify the ground on which discussion will be based, or to offer a reminder. As far as terminologies are concerned, it is interesting that in some scientific areas that have an impact on people’s everyday lives and personal dimensions, like medicine, there tend to be two or more parallel lexical inventories to refer to the same objects or concepts, one more specialized and the other belonging to ordinary communication. In medicine for instance: heart attack and myocardial infarction, also in Italian mal di testa/cefalea. (This causes some problems in translation, in Italian we use specialized words more often than in English, so in most cases, more specialized terms have to be used in Italian to translate less specific lexical items in the Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 English source text and vice versa). 2.2.3. Other characteristics of scientific and technical vocabulary Gotti lists 4 distinctive characteristics: - LACK OF EMOTION  lack of emotion could be better defined as lack of connotation, the absence of the emotional associations. (heart refers to the muscular organ, not the metaphorical meaning) - TRANSPARENCY  it is a peculiarity of technical words obtained by AFFIXATION, COMPOUNDING, PRE- OR POST- MODIFICATION, as knowledge of the meaning of the constituent elements can suggest the meaning of the whole expression. - CONCISENESS  it means the use of expressions that are as short as possible for the sake of brevity, - recours to ACRONYMS (Aids: Acquired, Immunodeficiency, Disorder); INITIALISMS (BDP: Borderline Personality Disorder); CREATION OF BLEND WORDS (nintendinitis: Nintendo + tendinitis); PREFERENCE FOR NOUN STRINGS rather than nouns followed by postmodifier (heart transplant, rather than transplant of the heart); CLIPPING – FORECLIPPING (plane for airplane), BACKCLIPPING (transplant for transplantation, advert for advertisement). - CONSERVATISM  especially in law and bureaucracy where expressions that have survived from Middle English and words with meanings that are rarely used in general language are used. One specific grammatical form is used, witnesseth. 2.3 Mechanism at work in the creation of scientific and technical terminologies Word formation is a branch of the science of language which studies the patterns on which a language forms new lexical units, words. We should introduce the notion of morpheme = the minimal linguistic unit with a lexical or a grammatical meaning. Lexical morphemes are an open class and denote extralinguistic objects and states of affairs, actions, events, situations, relations. They precede grammatical morphemes, desinences: in based the lexical morpheme bas(E) is followed by the grammatical morpheme. Lexical morphemes can combine with each other to produce new lexemes. Grammatical morphemes denote grammatical functions, plural, tense, syntactic relations. The main mechanisms: - semantic redermination, the attribution of a new meaning to an existing word; - conversion, assigning the base to a different word class; - affixation, adding a prefix or a suffix to a base, with or without a change of word class; - borrowing from foreign languages, generating loanwords and loan translations or calques; - compounding, adding a base to another base. 2.3.1. Semantic redetermination Semantic redetermination is the attribution of a new meaning to an existing lexeme, it is also called resemanticization. Semantic redetermination was widely used in the creation of the basic scientific vocabulary, especially in hard sciences, basic terms are simple words derived from ordinary language: force, power, resistance, function (used in more disciplinary sectors, mathematic for example and linguistics too). It is used to name key abstract concepts. Sometimes the resemanticization of terms has occurred in parallel in different languages starting from corresponding words, for the English terms mass, power, resistance, in Italian we have massa, Potenza, resistenza. Recourse to this kind of word formation process has been frequent in the computer sciences. Sometimes English terms such as bit, chip, file, are borrowed integrally in other languages. 2.3.2. Conversion A derivational process whereby an item is adapted or converted to a new word-class without the addition of an affix. - Noun to verb: catalogue (pamphlet), to catalogue; plaster (protective dressing), to plaster (to cover with plaster) - Verb to noun: to shut down (to close), shut down (the closing for a time of a factory) Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 - Adjective to verb: soundproof (impenetrable to sound), to soundproof (to insulate so as to obstruct the passage of a sound); black (colour), to black (to make black). 2.3.3. Borrowing: loanwords and calques Many of the terminological resources are derived from foreign sources, including originally the classical languages. English has only fey scientific and technical words borrowed. There’s a distinction: - integrated borrowings, those foreign words that have adapted to the structures of the recipient language, they can’t be recognized as borrowings (potato, pijamas) - non-integrated borrowings, foreign words that follow the phonotactic and spelling organization of the language they are borrowed from. French has been the language that has contributed more extensively to English terminology. EX: laissez-faire, coup d’état, communiqué, lactose, helicopter. English has tended to be a donor of lexical material rather than a receiver. This is due to the prestige of the language and the primacy of research and technological advances in English Speaking countries and its prevalent use as a lingua franca. In Italian English words are commonly used, for example leasing, trust, chip, file, software, they are used although there already exist local words for the same notions, they are called luxury borrowings, such as budget, catering, export, range, catch-up, email. Calques: in English in recent times calques have been really rare. For example, deaf-muet (sourd-muet in French), antibody (anti-korper in German). In Italian calques from English are frequent, doppio cieco from double blind, terzo mondo from third world, Giudice di pace from justice of the peace. Loanblends are a combination of a loanword and a loan translation, for example camshaft (albero a came in Italian) derives from French arbre à canne, with a procedure which combines the borrowing of the word camme with the translation of arbre as shaft. 2.3.4 Affixation It is a derivational process realized by attaching one or more affixes to a base. An affix is defined as a bound morpheme that attaches to bases, it can only occur if attached to another morpheme. Affixes are usually classified into three types: - prefixes, that are attached to the beginning of a base; - suffixes that follow the base; - infixes which are inserted within the base itself. Words obtained are TRANSPARENT, if one knows the meaning of elements, it is possible to guess all the meaning. Prefixes productive in both non-specialized and specialized language: in-, un- (the opposite of), a- (lacking in), de- (reversing the action), di- (double), dys- (destroying the good sense of a word), dis- (the opposite of). Suffixes: -er (or), agentive suffix, a de-verbal noun is obtained – maker of x, ex. Carder; -ant, agentive suffix, it may also produce inanimate nouns, ex. Lubricant, applicant; - ist, added to nouns or adjectives to indicate a member of a party, ex. Psychologist - ism, added to nouns or adjectives to obtain an abstract noun: chimerism, liberalism; - ation, added to a verb to obtain an abstract or a collective noun: globalization, organization. Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 Recourse is frequently made to lexical constituents derived from Latin and Greek. (degree of transparency). Amongst prefixes: h(a)emo – h(a)emato- = having to do with blood, h(a)ematology hypo- = below, lower than normal, hypoglycemia hyper- = above, higher that normal, hyperbaric, hyperglycemia (sometimes over is used, IPERDOSAGGIO – OVERDOSAGE) eu- = well, good, euthanasia thermo- = heat, thermocouple, thermoelectric auto- = self, same, autointoxication, (sometimes the prefixoid SELF is used, AUTOIMMUNE – SELF- IMMUNE) Amongst suffixes: - itis, inflammatory disease, bronchitis - oma, tumour, melanoma - ase, enzyme, lactase - ide, chloride (Italian: uro, CLORURO) - ite, hypochlorite (Italian: ito, IPOSOLFITO) Affixoids: hybrid elements, the denomination is usually extended also to morphemes that are not only prefixes or suffixes, but have a semantic content of their own. Words created by affixoids are similar to compounds. In compounds each of the constituents is a form of a lexeme, whereas derivation involves affixes, that is, non lexemic morphemes. Examples of prefixoids: psich-, concerning the psyche pseudo-, false, pretendend (pseudoconcept) self-, oneself, itself (reflexive meaning), (self-blocking, self-immune) cyclo-, occurring in a circle, (cyclomorphosis) Examples of suffixoids: -phagia, (aerophagia) -logy, science, discipline (gerontology, paleontology) -pathy (gastropathy) -form, having the form of (fusiform) -graphy, process or styles of writing, drawing, or graphic representation (astrography, cryptography). New prefixoids or suffixoids are added: -cyber (relating to computer, information, technology, virtual reality, cyberspace). 2.3.5. NON TRANSPARENT LEXICAL ITEMS Eponyms An important category of non-transparent lexical items is that of eponyms, denominations based on derived from a proper name. They can be created through different procedures: - by conversion (ampère, watt) - by derivation (bentonite – a kind of play named for the place where it was first found, Fort Benton) - by the creation of a noun group (Pythagorean theorem, Parkinson’s disease, Verner’s law). Abbreviations Abbreviation contributes to realize the ideal of economy and concision that is typical of specialized communication. - Initialisms reflect the separate pronunciation of the initial alphabetic letters of the constituent words (HIV, human immunodeficiency virus). Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 - Acronyms are the sequence of initial letters of the constituent words are pronounced as a single world (laser, light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation; REM, rapid eye movement; AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). - Clippings are reductions of longer forms, removing parts of the end of the word (ad or advert for advertisement), or the beginning (plane for airplane) or both (flu for influenza). - Blends or blendwords combine parts of two words, usually the first part of one word with the second part of another (stagnation + inflation = stagflation; smoke + fog = smoke). Compounding It is the combination of lexemes into larger words. A compound is a unit consisting of two or more bases or stems. It can be: - solid (bloodstream), - hyphenated (flash-guard, half-life), - open (blood stream, fuel oil). Compounds words can be nouns (heartbeat), adjectives (lead-free), verbs (to brainwash, to fireproof). Other examples: turntable, freezing point, nerve cell, mad-cow disease, watertight… There is a difference between the two languages in the order of the constituent elements, as in English the determiner always precedes the determined, while in Italian the reverse is generally the case. Owing to the interference of English today new words are sometimes produced on the English blueprint: TOSSICODIPENDENTE, CALCIO MERCATO. 2.3.7. Noun Phrases (noun strings) Recourse to noun strings is very common in specialized English, as the possibility of simply assembling nominal elements. The possibility of combining nominal elements into noun phrases thanks to the use of nouns as premodifiers is a peculiar trait of Germanic languages (credit card). In Latinate languages like Italian the same notions and concepts are encoded by connecting nominal elements by the prepositions, CARTA DI CREDITO, PRESA D’ARIA. This also involves a different order in the constituents of the nominal group, in English the HEAD of the noun group is always placed in the FIRST POSITION FROM THE RIGHT, while in Italian it occupies the FIRST POSITION FROM THE LEFT (soil PROPERTIES – PROPRIETA’ del suolo). Sometimes in Italian different elements are simply juxtaposed, a type of construction which is being used ever more frequently under the influence of English (idennità malattia). Prepositional phrases in Italian are lexically less dense, but their meaning is clearer since the relation between the different elements composing them is made explicit by the prepositions. In English it is difficult to understand the correct relation between the components of a noun string because there are multiple heads. (Esempi P57) CAP3 – TERMINOLOGY Specialized lexicon is the object of study of Terminology: a discipline that can be defined as the study of and the field of activity concerned with the collection, description, processing and presentation of terms, lexical items belonging to specialized areas of usage. The word Terminology also refers to the theory necessary to explain the relationships between concepts and terms. (Terminology with a capital T) terminology (small T) is used to designate the system of terms belonging to any science and specialized domain, as in the terminology of medicine. Terminology starts from the mapping of the conceptual system of a given field of knowledge and systematically studies concepts and their designations, terms used in the domain-specific language associated with a science, a technical field, a professional activity. Its purpose is to describe and prescribe the correct usage of terms: it also contributes to the understanding of the nature of scientific thinking, creative thinking in science and the role language plays in this. A term is a word (simple term), multiword expression (complex term), symbol or formula that designates a particular concept within a given subject field. 3.1 The main principles of traditional terminology Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 Terminology emerged as a science the 1930s. Eugen Wuster worked on General theory of terminology (GTT). Temmerman (2000) summarizes the main tenets of the GTT in 5 points: - Starts from concepts, within each discipline, without considering language. - A concept is clear-cut and can be placed logically in a system. - A concept is defined in an intentional definition. - A concept is referred by one term, and only one term designates its concept. (duality) - The study of concepts is synchronical and the term is permanent. In socioterminology  more dynamic and flexible conception of Terminology, the need is felt to contextualize terms in the texts where they occur, and to take into account their linguistic and communicative environment. In communicative theory terms are categorized as Units of Specialized Knowledge and are seen as polyhedral entities. The socio-cognitive theory of Terminology sees language as an important instrument in knowledge categorization and suggests that the concept should be seen not so much as unit of meaning but rather as a unit of understanding. In the course of the 2000s the so cultural Terminology emerged, focusing on variation in how terminologies work in different languages and cultures. 3.2 Onomasiological vs semasiological approach Onomasiological approach = from concept to term, the conceptual mapping of the subject investigated in purely abstract terms. Semasiological approach = starts from the formal aspect. In terminological work synonyms are dealt with together as they designate the same concept (scale/balance) while polysemes and homonyms (multiple meanings of the same word or different words that have the same spelling but different meanings) are dealt with separately. In lexicography synonyms are dealt with as separate entries in alphabetical order (balance under B and scale under S), homonyms are dealt with in separate numbered entries, and polysemes are dealt with together, with a separate section dedicated to each single different meaning. The idea that terminological work should follow a rigorously onomasiological approach is still a fundamental principle, in the meanwhile objections have been raised to the idea that concepts must be categorized by being given a place in the concept system before they are designated by a term. 3.3 MAPPING conceptual relationships Concepts are ordered in a conceptual classification scheme and presented in a systematic structure, it is necessary to identify the relationships each concept has with neighbouring concepts. GENERIC RELATIONSHIP It identifies concepts as belonging to the same category in which there is a broader concept that is superordinate, for instance newsletter, journal, magazine are types of periodical publications. PARTITIVE RELATIONSHIP The whole-part relationship indicated the connection between concepts consisting of more than one part and their constituent parts. For example the concepts hub, spokes and rim have a part-whole relationship with wheel. POLYVALENT RELATIONSHIP For instance bus as a vehicle can be classified as road vehicle, but also as passenger vehicle. Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP The relationships illustrated so far are hierarchical, suitable for intensional definitions, here there are some complex relationships among concepts: - cause – effect - material – product - material – property - material – state - process – product - process – method - process – patient - object – counteragent - object – container - object – material - object – quality - object – form - activity – place - explosion – fall-out - steel – girder - incision - scalpel - light - Watt - book – paperback Concept systems can be displayed graphically on the basis of concept characteristics and relationships in - tree diagram - tree chart - bracket diagram - diagram combining a logical system of concepts and a partitive system (FOTO SCHEMI DA P67) 3.3.9. Concept systems across languages The compilation of concept systems is especially useful with a view to translation. In many cases concept categorizations in two languages coincide, but in others they do not. 3.4 Defining concepts Concepts are conceived as mental representations of individual objects, but also of qualities, actions, locations, relations, they are determined as elements of a concept system which can be constructed on the basis of a close study of the characteristics. Then they are designated and defined. Definitions are descriptions of concepts by means of other known concepts, mostly in the form of words and terms; they are fundamental for any scientific terminological work. 1. AN INTENSIONAL DEFINITION (definition by intension) states the superordinate concept and list the characteristics to differentiate the concept in its systems. Term = superordinate + restricting characteristics. Ex = balloon = a non-power-driven lighter-than-air aircraft 2. EXTENSIONAL DEFINITION (definition by extension) consists of the enumeration of all species which are at the same level of abstraction. Ex = aircraft are: airplane, gliders, kites, balloons etc. 3. A PART-WHOLE DFINITIONS describes a superordinate concept in a partitive concept system by listing all the parts that make up the whole. Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 Ex: an airplane is composed of the following parts: fuselage, engine, wings, fin, landing gear, flight instruments. Terminological work has a preference for intensional definitions because they are more systematic and include an indication of the position of a concept/term with the conceptual system of the relevant domain. (An explanation instead is a description of a concept without considering its position in a system of concepts) 3.5 Univocity and variation Monoreferentiality has been considered as one of the main characteristics of specialized terminology. In traditional terminology in specific domain for one concept there should be one term, and each term should refer to one concept, thus reducing polysemy, homonymy and synonymy to a minimun. Univocity is one of the main concerns in terminology standardization. Systematic monoreferentiality is always possible only in certain fields, in other domains it is less viable, in other cases univocity is hardly possible. Traditional terminology focuses only on synchronic aspects, but a consideration of the evolution of terms over time can contribute to a deeper understanding of their conceptual meaning. Terms change over time. For example, the term clone: although this term came to the attention of the general public in 1996 with the cloning of Dolly the Sheep, it had been introduced several decades earlier, in 1903, to designate a technique that made it possible to obtain perfect copies of a plant. In the course of the XX century the term was used to refer to bacterial cell cultivation in botany. As far from 1973, it was also applied to DNA, until in 1988 the expression started to be used to refer to mammal reproduction. This paved the way to the successful cloning of a sheep in 1996. Today the term clone is mainly used to refer to an animal or (theoretically) a person the is developed asexually from its parent to whom it is genetically identical, but it is still used in botany and biology. This extension and diversification in meaning across domains obiously derives from variation in time. Many terms are prototypically structured: the prototype is a concept that is taken as a model, and related concepts are categorized and defined by means of a process of similarity comparison with it and they have features in common with the prototype. Some terms actually do lend themselves to standardization and normalization, and allow the applications of the univocity principle, some others do not, although they were originally conceived to be monoreferential. Furtermore, as pointed out by Cabré, the degree of variation also depends on the type of communicative situation: the smallest degree of variation  highly specialized community. the highest degree of variation  popularizing texts intermediate degree of variation  will characterize communication among specialists in everyday interactions. CAP4 SYNTACTIC PECULIARITIES OF SPECIALIZED TEXTS The peculiar characteristics of specialized discourse are not limited to the lexical level, but can be found at all levels, syntactic, textual, generic, pragmatic, rhetorical. According to Halliday, scientific discourse is characterized by a typical syndrome of grammatical features which tend to co-occur in it and are more frequent than in general language. It is to be noted that the incidence of peculiar syntactic structures tends to be higher in written texts than in oral expression, as written language, tends to be nominal in style and therefore lexically dense. There’s a strong tendency to encode this lexical content in a nominal form. 4.1 Nominalization: an introduction The most important and distinctive characteristic of specialized texts is the systematic recourse to nominalization, which results in a nominal style. Nominalization is a process “whereby any element or group of elements is made to function as a nominal group in the clause. this is done by having recourse to de-verbal forms functioning as nomina actionis: for Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 instance construction instead of forms to construct; analysis instead of to analyze; isolation instead of to isolate, growth for to grow. Nominalization also involves adjectives, with the use of de-adjectival nouns in place of adjectives: importance instead of important, availability instead of available. The choice to use nominalizations has the immediate effect of increasing the density of a sentence by packing information into conceptual units. Preference for a nominal style is found in specialized texts in English, in Italian and in most European languages. 4.2 Impact of nominalization on sentence organization There are various types of nominalized forms that are customarily used in specialized texts. The most frequent type is a nomen actionis postmodified by a prepositional phrase or, more rarely, a that- clause. The prepositional phrase, mainly an of-phrase, that follows the nominalized element results from a transformation of the subject or the object, depending on whether the action expressed is active (cell growth  cells grow) or passive (the reduction of emissions  emissions are reduced). In the latter case the agent is expressed in English by means of the preposition by or – more rarely – the prepositional phrase on the part of. Often a verb form is used to indicate some kind of correlation between the two processes expressed by means of nominalizations: “the testing of depleted uranium weapons and their use in combat has resulted in environmental contamination and human exposure”. The syntactic impact of nominalization on the organization of the clause can have the following consequences: - Reduction of the semantic load carried by verb forms, so there are empty verbs (be, happen, take place, represent) which encode the performance and completion of an action, but do not convey any information. (Influenza virus reassortment occurs with high frequency) - Shift of logico-semantic relations to the verb form, the verb form takes on itself the task of expressing the logico-semantic relations which in the absence of nominalization would be expressed by means of conjunctions connecting two separate clauses (to cause, to follow, to depend on, to lead to, to result in) (Its efficacy depends on the prevalence of protective antibodies against HAV) it makes possible to simplify the sentence at clause-complex level, eliminating the subordinate clause. - Shift of logico-semantic relations to a nominal predicate, in some cases preference is given to a nominal predicate (result, consequence, cause, indication) (It has been another consequence of environmental pollution) - Use of nominalization as Illocutionary Force Indicating Device, the indication of illocutionary force is encoded by means of nominalization (the hypothesis that a low-fat dietary pattern can reduce breast cancer risk has existed for decades) (illocutionary force refers to a speaker’s intention) The noun followed by an appositive clause functions as an Illocutionary force indicating device, to indicate what the speaker intends to do or accomplish with his/her utterance, hypothesize, order, request, promise. PERFORMATIVE MEANING, doing things with words. - Recourse to a fact clause, in some cases preference is given to a fact clause signaled by the noun fact itself, or notion, idea, possibility. (This observation can account for the fact that colonic Crohn’s disease can occur at any age) (It presupposes the proposition “Crohn’s disease can occur at any age is represented as textually true) the truth is taken for granted. Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 4.2.1 Significance of the nominal style in specialized discourse Nominations are functional to the general economy of discourse, contributing to packing information and concepts into proportionally shorter stretches of text; this meets the need for concision and efficiency which characterizes specialized discourse. This set of nominalization procedures tends to shift from clause-complex level to noun-group level, also contributes to simplifying the organization of clauses within the sentence. Recourse to complex noun groups makes it possible to pack into a single clause a quantity of meaning which otherwise would have required numerous clauses. Sometimes adverbial complements are used to substitute a variety of subordinate adverbial clauses: “for sample preparation” (in order to prepare samples…) One of the effects is an increase in the lexical and semantic density of texts, an increase of lexical elements within the sentence, measured as the number of lexical words in each clause compared to the total number of words. There’s also a discursive consequence. - When nominalization is used, there is no need to indicate the subject of a given action, nor it is necessary to express tense and mood because the collocation of the action is lexicalized. - the nominal transformation of a verb into a nominal construction, another example: my concern is that, there is often a perception… The recurrence of these constructions is one of the results of a general tendency of specialized texts to avoid that the assertion of a hypothesis. This syntactic choice contributes to conferring textual objectivity and universality. The non-specification of the subject, tense and mood of the action made possible by recourse to nominalization involves a reduction and mitigation of the explicit illocutionary commitment, it contributes to reducing the strength of the utterance. Particularly meaningful is the effect of de- personalization generated by the use of nominalizations (a sort of hedging strategy). 4.2.2. An interpretation of nominalization According to Halliday, nominalizations functions as a grammatical metaphor: it re-construes processes as nouns, as if they were entities. In grammatical terms, actions are construed as stable in time, rather than as processes. Thanks to the conceptualization into abstract nominal entities, processes can take on the function of subjects, thus making it easier to carry argumentation. 4.3 The translation of nominal constructions In scientific and technical translation, the rendering of nominalization deserves special attention. An advantage for the translator is that this feature is not peculiar to one language, but can be found across languages. In English and in Italian nominalization is not used differently, in Italian recourse to nominalization is often made also in standard language use, certainly more frequently than in general English. (ex. P92) But there are cases where the syntactic organization of the sentence has to be changed radically, making recourse to procedures of nominalization or de-nominalization. The shift from a non-nominal form in English to a nominal one in Italian is frequent because in many domains in comparable Italian texts the frequency of nominal constructions tends to be higher. An advantage is that they can be… Un vantaggio è costituito dalla possibilità… Also in translation from English into Italian there are cases where de-nominalization is necessary: There has been no systematic examination … Non è stato esaminato sistematicamente… The structural similarity between English and Italian often extends also to complex prepositions Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 accompanying the nominal elements. The degradation of these components … La degradazione di questi componenti... A similar parallel exists between English and Italian also when verb forms collocate with nominalized elements. For reassortment to occur … Perché avvenga il riassortimento There are contexts when in English preference is given to collocations with the verb be, as in Italian there is often a tendency to use existential verbs that are formally more complex than essere, like avvenire, costituire, rappresentare, consistere. The key experimental issue is whether the research methods used were in fact able to.. Il problema è costituito dalla effettiva capacità dei metodi di ricerca di … (other examples from p. 95 to p.98) - how fast cells grow… - è la velocità di crescita … - wheter/if - la possibilità di … Recourse to nominalization (or not) has to be made to ad hoc solutions to be decided on in each specific case. 4.4 Verb forms: Mood, tense, voice - The use of non-finite forms is unusually frequent. (for the economy of expression) - Recourse to participles (both past and present) is frequent (gained, suffering, stimulating…) - As far as the -ed participle is concerned, in English it cannot be used with intransitive verbs, neither in agreement with one of the nominal elements in the main clause nor in an absolute construction while this use is quite frequent in Italian (sorto nel 1988). - The meaning of some of these constructions containing a nominal verb form has undergone a process of grammaticalization, becoming a subordinating conjuction – given that, seeing that, providing that, provided that, supposing that, granting that, granted that, admitting that, assuming that, presuming that … The same phenomenon exists also in Italian: considerato che, dato che, visto che, stante che… In English-to-Italian translation for the rendering of participle preceding a noun preference is given to a nominal form, this happens both with -ed and – ing participles of verbs meaning increase, decrease. This may happen also with other verbs, such as “randomized” – la randomizzazione … 4.5. Schematization procedures Recurrent recourse to charts, diagrams, tables, schemes series, lists is one of the stylistic peculiarities of specialized texts which result from the desire for clarity and effectiveness. Series and lists often have a schematic graphic organization ordered by means of numbers or letters. This helps to make texts easier to read and memorize, the items organized into lists or schemes are nomina actions with the preference of nominalization, but sometimes also verb forms in the infinitive or in the -ing form. Visual aids are used too, they can be in the form of Power point slides, prezi, or printed out on paper. CAP5 – FROM TEXT TO DISCOURSE Text has been defined as an extended structure of syntactic units such as words, groups, and clauses and textual units that is marked by both coherence among elements and completion. Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 A text is a communicative occurrence which meets seven standards of textuality, which comprise cohesion (the way in which the components of the surface text are connected with a sequence), coherence (the way in which the components underline how text is organized), intentionality (which regards the speaker’s intention to obtain certain goals), acceptability (the receiver’s attitude), informativity (the relationship between what is expected and what is known – DISCRASIA – RELAZIONE FRA QUELLO CHE DICO E QUELLO CHE L’ALTRO RECEPISCE E SA IN GENERALE), intertextuality (a text is understandable upon other previously encountered texts). When we talk about text we refer to linguistic elements that are organized in a cohesive whole, expressing coherent ideas, capable of fulfilling the intentions of the sender, providing information to the recipient and being relevant to the situation where it is produced and accessible depending on knowledge of previously encountered texts. In a textual perspective, linguistic analysis can be carried out by viewing texts from an internal point of view (internal construction, organization of a communicative occurrence, lexicon, syntactic structures). In a discoursal perspective, the focus is on the language in use, giving more importance to the social dimension, social practices and related communicative strategies used in a variety of contexts and situations (social, political, economic, personal, institutional). 5.1 Depersonalization A whole range of de-personalizing syntactic features is used. - Verb forms in the passive voice (it is concluded) - Inanimate subjects (Recent studies) - An existential construction (there are large increases) - Anticipatory it (…) The use of impersonal forms is generalized not only in the exposition of concepts, notions and facts, but also in metadiscursive commentary, where the omission of the subject has the function of limiting the illocutionary commitment on the part of the speaker. Objectivity and universality are conferred. In technical texts there is evidence of an attempt to suppress the self of the person producing the text, or rather all linguistic elements that encode his/her discursive identity. This involves the cancellation of the grammatical presence of the subject in favour of an agent who is not individual, but purely epistemic: notions, concepts, hypotheses are not presented as subjective and individual, but rather as objective and universal. In many cases there are sections of the texts where the first-person (often first-person plural) subject re- appears, usually in sections that are more centred on individual experience or that outline the main original thesis. (ex: self-citations) Using depersonalization, they highlight speaker’s impartiality, implying that it deserves unconditional acceptance. In many cases texts alternate sections organized impersonally to others where the authors make their presence visible, highlighting the originality of their research, and their engagement as individuals or as a group. (using we) 5.2. Thematization Thematic structure is way information is organized into a message. In Halliday’s words “the theme is the element which serves as the point of departure of the message”. The theme is indicated by its position in the clause, it is put first. The remainder of the clause is the Rheme, which develops on the Theme, and conveys what the speaker has to say about the theme. The theme often coincides with the subject. The theme is often preceded by other elements: an adverb (today, incidentally), a prepositional phrase (in the last few years, in many Asian countries, from an international perspective), an adverbial clause, a participial clause. By analyzing thematic structure, it is possible to gain insights into the writer’s actual intentions and underlying concerns. Thematization focuses attention on the real object if the discussion, on what is really being talked about, thus providing a powerful tool to confer logical coherence and cohesion on discourse. The nominal style is functional to the construction of the thematic organization of the text, a similar effect is generated by the frequent recourse to passive verb forms. Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 In English it is possible to thematize an element which otherwise would have been the subject of that- clause. (Chinese scientists have been reported to be experimenting with human cloning) Appositions, adjectives, participles, adverbial complements or clauses are often placed at the beginning of the sentence and thus thematized. Sometimes the syntactic order can be more marked, when the predicate noun or the participle in a passive verb form is brought to the front of the clause. (also included are foods made from …) Another recurrent stylistic feature aimed at emphasizing one of the elements in the sentence and altering the textual effects of the ordinary Theme-Rheme, Given-New sequence is the cleft sentence which generates a “predicated theme”. (it is deterioration that…) 5.3. Pragmatic and rhetorical aspects More recent studies have put this reputation of absolute objectivity into question and showing that in specialized texts there may be a rich discursive structure serving a range of different intentions, going well beyond pure informativeness. These texts are not totally free from modulation and manipulation. 5.3.1. Metadiscourse It refers to the linguistic resources a writer uses to attempt to guide recipients’ perception of a text. Discourse includes devices that contribute to conveying the speaker’s attitude and his/her communicative and rhetorical intent. Vande Kopple “we help our readers organize, clarify, interpret, evaluate, react to such material. Metadiscourse is discourse about discourse or communication about communication”. According to Hyland, metadiscourse is the cover term for the self-reflective expressions used to negotiate interactional meaning in a text, assisting the writer (or speaker) to express a viewpoint and engage with readers as members of a particular community. There’s a distinction between INTERACTIVE – INTERACTIONAL resources. - INTERACTIVE RESOURCES  refer to the writer’s attempt to organize text to meet the recipients’ expectations and needs, and make them aware of the writer’s preferred interpretations and purposes. They are textual resources, aimed at orientating the reader. - INTERACTIONAL RESOURCES  refer to how writer manages the interaction with recipients, putting forth commentary to make him/her views explicit and engage readers. Transitions = expressing addition (and, furthermore, moreover, by the way), comparison in the form of similarity (similarly, likewise, equally, in the same way) or difference (in contrast, however, but, on the contrary, on the other hand), consequence (thus, therefore, consequently, in conclusion), or indicating the argument is being countered (admittedly, nevertheless, anyway, in any case, of course). Frame markers = signal text boundaries or refer to text structure, there are sequencers (first, then, at the same time, next, finally), elements labelling text stages (to summarize, in sum, by way of introduction), announcing discourse intents (I argue here, my purpose is, the paper proposes, I hope to persuade, there are several reasons why), or topic shift (well, right, OK, now, let us return to) Code glosses = supply additional information, by rephrasing, explaining or elaborating what has been said, such as this is called, in other words, that is, this can be defined as, for example. Boosters = devices that emphasize certainty and contrast dissenting views (clearly, obviously, to demonstrate) Self-mentions = a powerful instrument to make the author’s presence felt. Attitude markers = encode the writer’s stance as explicitly signaled by attitude verbs (agree, prefer), sentence adverbs (unfortunately, hopefully), adjectives (appropriate, logical, remarkable). Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 Engagement markers = devices that explicitly address readers, either to focus their attention or include them as discourse participants; through them writers can highlight or downplay the presence of their readers in the text (reader pronouns, note, consider, as we saw earlier, can you think of a better method?) 5.3.2. Hedging strategies According to Lakoff, hedges are lexical units whose job is to make things fuzzy or fuzzier. According to Brown and Levinson, the term hedge indicates a participle, word, phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or a noun phrase in a set; it says of that membership that is partial or true only in certain respects, or that is more true and complete than perhaps might be expected. Hubler describes hedging as a manipulative non-direct strategy of saying less that one means. Hedges are words or expressions that attenuate or approximate the value or strength of a statement. In oral conversation hedges are easier to find: more or less, in a way, essentially, slightly, sort of, kind of. Hedges now embrace all linguistic features and strategies aimed at modulating or reducing the speaker’s or writer’s commitment to the truth or the illocutionary force of an utterance. Hedging strategies have slightly diversified functions, as they can be aimed at generating an effect of politeness, indirectness, mitigation, vagueness, attenuation. Authors produce less categorical utterances in a less personal tone, in order to save the face, exposing themselves to a more limited risk in case of criticism, controversy or refutation. - Epistemic adverbs used ad hedges: apparently, presumably, seemingly, conceivably, theoretically, in line of principle, essentially (more frequent in the introduction and the conclusion of the papers) - Two hedging devices: seem, presumably which save the authors’ face from appearing to categorical and self-assured. - Perhaps: it contributes to give some degree of uncertain, it mitigates the hypothesis. Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 - Emphatics: of course, insist that totally, finally, in fact, indeed (the topic being discussed is presented as so serious that it would not be possible to overlook or to ignore it). - Reported predication = as a shared knowledge (it is generally accepted that, it suggests that), in this way an author can avoid taking full responsibility, the author prefers attribution to averral (Sinclar). - May, can, modals = adding a dimension of possibility - Hedged performatives: performative verbs such as apologize, promise, request, when preceded by specific modals such as can, must, should, result in an attenuated illocutionary force of the speech act designated by the verb. (hedged speech acts) - Must: necessity as excuse, (it must be concluded) - Should - A hedging function can be attributed also to the use of nominalization, the possibility it affords of omitting the subject has the effect of limiting the author’s commitment. CAP6 – GENRE IN SPECIALIZED COMMUNICATION Text formats can be readily recognizable by the members of the community where they are used, but in most cases also by outsiders. Communicative events belonging to a given genre are characterized by noticeable uniformity in the use of language and of discursive and rhetorical resources. These recurrent text formats are called genres. The term genre has traditionally been used to describe and categorize forms of literary production on the basis of some set of stylistic criteria, often also identifying the canons prescriptively governing discourse production within each single genre. It has also been used to refer to various forms of artistic production, painting, music, photography, theatre, film. Speech genres are seen as stable types of utterances that emerge in each sphere where language is used. They reflect the specific conditions and goals of each sphere through thematic content, style and compositional structure at any given time. 6.1. Defining genre According to Miller genre is typical rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations. The most influential definition of genre in specialized discourse was given by John Swales: genre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purposes identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or academic community where it regularly occurs. It responds to the communicative exigencies of a given specialized discourse community: this cognitive structuring reflects accumulated and conventionalized social knowledge available to a particular discourse community. Text genres tend to evolve in time. Genre knowledge: authors conform to a pre-existing text format, thus making sure a text is functional to their communicative needs, offering the correct relationship between the contents that are peculiar to the specific disciplinary domain organized into discourse, and the form of expression, the linguistic resources deployed to express it. Genre knowledge is a form of related to the discursive practices of the members of a disciplinary culture and the context where such practices are set. Generic Structure Potential has been proposed, every native speaker will know what to say when he/she enters a shop to buy apples or bananas and also what to expect from the shopkeeper’s behaviour. We’re all familiar with the Service Encounter text genre as it is realized in our culture, so he/she can utilize language appropriately. Genre knowledge regulates written communication, speech and conversation. 6.2. Analysing text in a genre-based perspective Looking a text in a genre-based perspective involves describing the overall cognitive/pragmatic construction of the text, the context and the situation in which the genre is used and the linguistic, social, cultural, professional values that bear on it, it requires consideration of situational and social contexts. In terms of linguistic analysis the focus is on the recurrence of certain linguistic patterns and rhetorical figures. Bhatia distinguishes two different levels: - text patterning  the analysis considers the recurrent syntactic features which may be typical of a genre, shared by various genres (high frequency of noun phrases, verb forms in the passive…) Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 - lexico-grammatical features  they are considered taking account of their frequency, but also providing an interpretation of their function in discourse. Texts are deconstructed in terms of MOVES, the different cognitive and rhetorical actions performed through discourse, which are also seen as sequentially organized. Some of these moves are obligatory, constitutive of the genre, some are not. In CEO’s letters, for example, the following moves are obligatory: - evaluating/commenting on Company’s performance, trends and results in the relevant year; - providing a narrative of salient facts; - illustrating outlook and priorities for the future. It is customary to carry out the reconstruction of the moves. Genre based discourse analysis has extended its attention to social and professional spaces, viewing discourse respectively as social and as professional practice. 6.2.1 Role of genre in scientific and professional communities For a linguistic interaction to be successful, it is essential that the persons involved have a common language and a common organization of points of view as well as a background of common knowledge and shared experience. This is what Berkenkotter and Huckin call Community ownership: within its framework genre conventions are strictly connected with a discourse community’s norms, epistemology and ideology, social ontology. In science each text genre is associated with the rhetorical needs that emerge in connection with the rise of new epistemological approaches within a given disciplinary field. A new genre introduces a new model of discourse, characterized by a number of invariants, while some details will variate, and this is what will change and evolution in the form of the genre itself. Each new model will represent a sort of blueprint, offering ready-made solutions for the problems that are peculiar to scientific communication in a specific field of research at any given time. Genres have a decisive impact on the way scholar articulates and develops his/her discourse. 6.3 Classifying and grouping genres Genres should never be seen in isolation, because in actual communication they are set in a framework of interaction and/or interrelation with other genres with which they co-exist. The most basic of such conceptualizations is that of genre sets (Devitt). Bazerman introduces the notion of genre system. Swales puts forth different categorizations for different conceptualizations for genre constellations: the notion of genre set, by Devitt, which is the part of the total genre network that a particular individual engages; the notion of genre chain which lays emphasis on the chronological/logical order connecting the deployment of genres in a communicative event; genre hierarchy; genre network (based on intertextuality). Devitt in a new conceptualization talks about genre repertoire which refers to all the genres that are available to any given professional group. 6.4. The research article The research article is possibly the main vehicle for the dissemination of specialist knowledge both within each disciplinary community and across disciplinary communities, It is also the main vehicle through which scientists make their advances and discoveries known to society. Research articles are usually published, either in print or online, in specialized journals. Numerous studies have also concentrated on the overall cognitive structuring of the research article - what van Dijk defines “macrostructures”. It is to be noted that these macrostructures are located at a higher level of generalization compared to moves, each of them usually comprising several moves. In his study of macrostructures in discourse, van Dijk points out that all argumentative texts have «a binary structure, consisting of Premises and Conclusion. The «experimental research scholarly paper» has a complex conventional schema, which is dictated by strict norms imposed by scholarly journals and therefore taught in colleges. Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 The typical basic structure of the scientific research paper is Introduction - Problem - Solution - Conclusion. Of course, there are obvious variations to this basic sequence. According to Gotti in the social sciences (in psychology) the standard sequence is Introduction – Theory - Problem - Experiment - Comment – Conclusions; the Experiment section can be further subdivided into Projects - Methods - Materials - Results. In the medical field the recognized discursive organization of scientific papers is the so-called IMRAD pattern, ie. the sequence Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. Similarly in her studies of the research article in economics, Merlini identifies the basic sequence Analysis - Proposal – Prediction. 6.4.1 Research article introductions Four-move structure for a typical article introduction. Move 1. Establishing field: (a) Showing centrality; (b) Stating current knowledge; (c) Ascribing key characteristics; Move 2. Summarizing previous research; (a) Strong author-orientation; (b) Weak author-orientation; (c) Subject orientation; Move 3. Preparing for present research: (a) Indicating a gap; (b) Question-raising; (c) Extending a finding:; Move 4. Introducing present research: (a) Giving the purpose; (b) Describing present research. Italian texts usually offer a much more detailed précis of the contents, while in English there usually is a very brief summary. Research articles do show structural similarities across domains, but more evident regularities can be found within each single domain or discipline. 6.4.2 Developments: the article of the future Today most research articles are published not only in print, but also online, some of them only online. In 2013 the academic publisher Elsevier launched a project, “the article of the future” which revolutionizes the traditional format, adding hypertextual features to the traditional, monolithic pdf format. The new format is still based on the pdf look and is graphically organized in a three-pane presentation layout: navigation bar, main content area and right sidebar. The main pane displays the original article. All references in the text are hyperlinks. Readers are offered interactive options that put advantages of innovation at their disposal for a more efficient and effective reading experience. 6.5 The abstract An abstract is an abbreviated, accurate representation of the contents of a document, preferably prepared by its authors for publication with it. As a faithful summary, it provides an opportunity to shed light on the cognitive and linguistic structuring of the research paper. Bathia’s model comprising four moves is widely accepted: 1. Introduction purpose, a move giving indications about the author’s intention, thesis or hypothesis, the goals or the problem; 2. Describing methodology, a move giving indications on the experimental design, including data, Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 procedures methods and scope; 3. Summarizing results: a description of the author’s findings, observations and suggested solutions to the problem; 4. Presenting conclusions, a move meant to interpret results and draw inferences and to discuss implications and applications. In many cases the structure of the abstract is pre-determined by the scheme imposed by journal. The Background includes general statements on the problem at issue, could be also labelled “Introduction”. In other disciplinary domains there are other variations: purpose, design/methodology/approach, findings, research limitations/implications, practical implications, originality/value. CAP7- THE DISSEMINATION AND POPULARIZATION OF SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY: LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVES 7.1. Popular science in contemporary society We live in a highly technologized world, where advances in science and technology have had a profund impact on our lives. A degree of awareness of the options available and the basic mechanisms is desirable to avoid a situation where people get things done and perform actions on the basis of practical experience, without really understanding what is going on. POPULARIZATION – In today’s world, it is indispensable also for the layman to have at least some familiarity with a number of basic concepts and mechanisms in science and technology. The popularization process has to work for the prompt spread of new ideas and information, the advances and the inventions. Definition provided by Calsamiglia and Van Dijk (2004): Popularization is a social process consisting of a large class of discursive-semiotic practices, involving many types of mass media, books, the internet exhibitions and other genres of communicative events, aiming to communicate lay versions of scientific knowledge, as well as opinions and ideologies of scholars, among the public at large. The idea that scientists should communicate their finding to the general public has emerged only recently. It must recognized that the role of experts is still rather limited in the popularization process. This explains the efforts made by associations, societies and publicly instituted committees, which organize events and exhibitions, to promote scientific communication in the media and set up websites and other online services to favour the dissemination of scientific knowledge. The need is also to consider what the social, ethical, policy implications of new findings may be. Allan relies on Henriksen and Froyland to list some of the arguments that are usually set forth in order to support the view of general public’s acquisition. The arguments are: - The practical argument: people need an understanding of science and technology to handle everyday life; - The democratic argument: people need an understanding of science to relate to the many complex science-related issues that confront citizens of modern democracies; - The cultural argument: science is part of our cultural heritage and has influenced our view of the world; - The economic argument: a scientifically literate work-force is necessary for a sound and flourishing economy. There are many issues, like environment conservation, climate change, food safety, the coronavirus, for which the assessment of risk and evaluation of the degree of urgency of measures to be taken is integrally delegated to scientists and engineers, in most cases experts’ views are reported second-hand in the media. The public perception of scientific and technological issues and people’s reactions to them will be based on the representations of such issues offered by newspapers, magazines, tv news, documentary films, websites, blogs, Wikipedia. The mass media are not passive mediators of scientific knowledge, they actively contribute to the Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 production of new common knowledge and opinions about science and scientists. 7.1.1 Views of popularization The types of discourses popularization involves are totally different from those deployed by specialized communication. - Deficit model It is based on the metaphor of scientific sufficiency and public deficiency. This approach is accompanied by the notion that expert and lay audiences are divided by a vast gulf between absolute knowledge and absolute ignorance. - Contextual model It is more symmetrical than the dominant view, communication is seen as a two-way flow between science and its publics who are active subjects. This model acknowledges that individuals do not simply respond as empty containers to information, but rather process it according to social and psychological schemas shaped by their previous experiences, cultural context, personal circumstances. - Lay-knowledge model It is more oriented towards engaging the public, it emphasizes the need to build on existing local knowledge. - Public participation model It focuses on a series of activities intended to enhance public participation. By definition popularization involves some form of selection and transformation to render scientific information accessible to the public at large. In the popularization process scientific knowledge is re- elaborated by reduction and simplification. This has triggered a debate on the boundary between simplification and distortion, a debate in which scientists have often been inclined to consider scientific communication as typically distorted. Specialized knowledge is made comprehensible, although it is not easy to draw a boundary between appropriate simplification and distortion. 7.2 Discursive practices in the popularization of science and technology The most important linguistic, textual and discursive practices that make specialized knowledge accessible to non-specialized readers. So popularizing discourse is characterized by frequent recourse to different forms of DEFINITIONS, REFORMULATIONS, EXPLANATIONS. - Notion of PROXIMITY (introduced by Hyland): it refers to a writer’s control of rhetorical features which display authority as an expert and a personal position towards issues in an unfolding text. Proximity helps explain in what ways popularizing articles or blog posts on a given topic take a radically different discursive approach. Different aspects: - Organisation, which includes all aspects of text design and presentation, and is therefore suited also to the description of the online environment; - Argument – Structure, which looks at the focus and framing of knowledge exposition, also considering the syntactic resources deployed; - Stance which regards expression of personal attitudes, including metadiscourse; - Reader engagement, linguistic devices encoding the presence of the addressee in the text; - Credibility, which regards the reliability of sources of knowledge, often realized in online communication by means of hyperlinks redirecting to authoritative sources. It involves a form of RE-WRITING. Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 Science and technology reporters and other popularizers use a number of different sources for their texts. Greenberg (1997. P.-27) lists the following journals, scientific reviews, which are routinely monitored, meetings, like conferences, science and technology topics connected with events and phenomena that make the news, press conferences and spontaneous calls by scientists. If one compares popularizing discourse with specialized communication it becomes obvious that the semiotic coordinates change. The basic difference regards the participation framework: in popularization, communication participants are specialized journalists and/or popularizers on the one side and non specialized readers on the other. This involves specific relations of power between writers and addressees, and a gap between them in terms of pre-existing knowledge and beliefs and shared values. In each case, as writers address their particular popular audience, they construct by presupposing certain sets of values, shared beliefs and pre-existing background knowledge. This implies not only a SIMPLIFICATION of knowledge, but also a RE- CONTEXTUALIZATION in order to achieve the objective of making people understand the scientific and technological concepts that are being popularized. Popular science texts tend to be more expositive that argumentative in approach, it determines a lower frequency of the typical linguistic features associated with argumentation, and especially metadiscourse markers. Popularizing texts tend to give results immediately. In popular science and technology often notions are expressed more vaguely, thus avoiding the use of technical words. Very colloquial words are used: - Bugs - Drug-resistant bacteria = superbugs - Antidepressants = the happy pill - Serotonin = the feelgood hormone - Intestine = gut - DNA = junk Conversational words has the function of reassuring the reader. At cause-complex level the effort to make texts readily comprehensible also determines shorter sentence length and lower complexity, it simplifies the sentence structure. The re-contextualization of scientific knowledge in popularization discourse and its transformation into everyday commonsense knowledge generally re-intereprets precise information exposing it in fuzzy or approximate form, inspiring users to seek more detailed information and consult additional sources. 7.3 Popularization techniques on the surface of discourse The main discursive techniques  Calsamiglia and Van Dijk include five strategies seen as forms of explanation. 1. DENOMINATION or DESIGNATION  It consists in introducing new objects, events or terms, indicating their specialized denominations, making recourse to expressions like: called, known as, meaning, so- called, technically called, in other words. 2. DEFINITION  it involves the conceptual delimitation of a term by means of a brief description of some general and specific properties of the thing the term refers to. In some cases denomination and definition are strictly intertwined. Definitions in scientific papers are typically non-explicative, but rather aimed at establishing a preliminary agreement with the reader and drawing his/her attention to some characteristics or properties of the subject matter. 3. REFORMULATION  it is a reformulated (less concise and dense) discourse fragment that is easier to understand that the original discourse fragment, having the same meaning. It is a sort of paratactic elaboration, it can take the form of an apposition, preceding or coming after the word it clarifies, it can be Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 given in brackets, it can be based on current meaning or on etymology, “that is”, “that is to say”, “in other words”. 4. GENERALIZATION  it consists in recourse to a statement that extends the validity of a proposition to all or most members of a set, a given notion is explained by making reference to a set to which it belongs. 5. EXEMPLIFICATION  one or more propositions are instantiations of a more general proposition, it is often introduced by “for instance”, “for example”, “an example is”. In addition to these strategies, there’s another: EXPLICATION PROPER, through which the reader is offered information that enriches or updates his/her knowledge of the subject matter treated. Explication is aimed at increasing artificially the degree of shared knowledge between the expert and the layman-reader, reducing the cultural asymmetry between them. 7.4 Cognitive and pragmatic-level popularization techniques There are other techniques, which, by contrast are set on a cognitive level and focalize on the interface between meaning and knowledge. They can be summarized under the label ANALOGY OR ASSOCIATION (including similes and metaphors). - Similes are easily identifiable as they are accompanied by specific linguistic indicators, such as like, as, similar to, not different from, the same as. - Metaphors  in Lakoff and Johnson’s words, the essence of a metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. Usually, the other element is cognitively familiar to readers, being part of their background knowledge or everyday experience. When metaphors are uses the kind of reader’s knowledge that is usually presupposed is simply a basic general socio-cultural knowledge of the world. The use of metaphors can be local. Metaphors are often used as overall frames in which a whole are of complex knowledge is organized and reinterpreted. 7.5 Language reports in popularizing discourse Another recurrent features of popularization discourse is the use of quotations, it is a projection of information and ideas, this form of projection involves a choice among a range of possible different syntactic options: direct, indirect, inserted, integrated. - Direct citation, the clause containing the quotation and the quotation itself are syntactically independent, so the report verb may be in the past tense, while the quoted statement is in the present tense. It reproduces the exact wording of the expert’s statement. (: “…”; sometimes the attribution is postponed, “experts have said”) Rercourse to direct citation tends to be the most popular choice. - Indirect citation, this involves a semantic process whereby the gist of the expert’s statement is reported hypotactically, being elaborated in order to adapt to the new subordinate syntactic status with shifts in pronouns and verb forms, in Halliday’s words “twice-cooked”. - Integrated citation, this type of citation allows mixing syntactic traits of direct and indirect style. - Inserted citation, cited words or sentences are brought into the main discourse by means of markers such as “in the words of X”, “According to x”, which have the function of assigning explicit words to a particular agent without any communicative verb. The attribution contributes to emphasizing the authoritativeness of the sources, it serves to relieve the writer from taking the responsibility as to the accuracy and truthfulness of the information given, with a Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 “hedging” effect. Citations introduce a degree of liveliness, a personal element in the writing, sometimes specialized knowledge is presented through the personal experience. 7.6 Entextualization: de-centering, re-centering It is the process of decontextualization or decentering and recentering of information and knowledge inherent in popularization that has the most pervasive and critical impact on the discursive presentation of knowledge. Popularization involves not only a reformulation but in particular also a recontextualization of scientific knowledge and discourse that is originally produced in specialized contexts to which the lay public has limited access. This means that popularization discourse must always adapt to the appropriateness conditions and other constraints of the media and communicative events, those of the daily press or specialized magazines, in which they appear. It appropriates and re-elaborates to make it suitable for communication to the general public. In this respect it is useful to refer to the notion of entextualization, originally introduced in anthropology to designate the extraction of meaning from one discourse and the subsequent insertion of that meaning into another discourse through a process of de-contextualization or 'decentering and its 're-centering' in another context. This process inevitably involves transformations, changes in orientation towards authoritative voices, shifts in referential and indexical frames. Recourse to the notion of entextualization enables the researcher to reconstruct the 'natural history of texts'. This is especially relevant to popularizing articles as they generally result from an assemblage/collation and/or a synthesis of various elements of both content and form derived from previous or parallel textualizations. The procedure of comparing popularizing articles with their antecedents is especially useful as recontextualization involves not only a semiotic re-organization at the communicative level, but also a degree of cognitive restructuring. Transmitting scientific knowledge and transforming objects and states of knowledge of the world of science into the objects of media discourse, entails an overall process of explanation which includes a proposal of re-interpretation in terms of social knowledge. This often includes popular science writers and journalists to alter the main focus of scientific information, laying emphasis on secondary elements. CAP 8 – TRADITIONAL AND NEW FORMS OF POPULARIZATION: FROM THE PRESS TO WIKIPEDIA This chapter aims to provide an overview of a various forms of popularization, exploring the transformation specialized knowledge undergoes in the process, the linguistic and discursive strategies. The role of the web is especially prominent, The web is ever more frequently used also to access traditional media, radio, television, newspapers, and cultural products, and the same multimedia content can be accessed through different channels and from different devices. The internet continues to grow as Americans’ primary source for science news and information. These studies will focus on daily newspapers, thematic blogs, Wikipedia, ted talks. 8.1 Newsworthiness How and why certain events, discoveries, advances are chosen for popularization rather than others. In the press this responsibility falls only minimally on the journalist themselves, but mainly on press editors. Working on the basis of Galtung and Ruge’s (1973) model of newsworthiness, Gregory and Miller (1998) list the following factors: - Thereshold: an event becomes news if it is on a large enough scale to get over the threshold of news interest. - Meaningfulness, relevance, consonance: a story has to mean something to the readers if they are to understand it, and has to be relevant. Cultural and geographical proximity are important factors. Further, what is read has more weight if it is consonant with readers’ existing beliefs and attitudes. Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 - Co-option and composition: if a story can be co-opted (linked to other stories) it may have more chance to get into the news. Composition regards the position where a given article is published in the paper: in each case the story will be competing with other science and technology stories or with the latest political scandal respectively. - Frequency, unexpectedness and continuity: frequent events can be anticipated and this is liked by journalists because they can prepare texts, or at lease notes. Frequency is a factor which only rarely applies to science and technology, which are by definition unexpected. Continuity refers to how long a story will run. Stories that build up over time are good in journalism: the public becomes involved and develops familiarity with the main actors. - Competition: news outlets are in competition for who will first cover a given event, fact or discovery. - Unambiguity and negativity: stories have better news value if they are clearly good or bad, and bad news is certainly more newsworthy. - Facts, sources and their reliability: facticity is good news value. And science and technology can easily provide it. - Elite and personalization: an event with scientific and/or technological relevance is all the more interesting if it regards elite nations, elite social groups, elite people. In any case personal details about scientists, scholars, members of scientific teams represent an extra element of attraction for the general public’s attention. The crucial element is probably the extent to which a given scientific topic has an impact on everyday life, and deal with it under an essentially human perspective. 8.2 Text structure Each form of popularization discourse is subject to the conventions and constraints of the media and communicative events. In the daily press, for instance popular science articles may appear in different sections of the paper: in the Health section, in the science and Technology section. News articles are characterized by an extreme reduction and compression of information because of their much more limited length with respect to research papers. It is quite normal then that this extreme reduction reinforces the obvious need for simplification that is part of the process of pre-digestion of specialized knowledge inherent in popularization, this leads to a selection of content elements, the deletion of those discarded and a summarization of the information, set forth in the source materials. New texts exhibit a typical structure in which information is not exposed in a linear progression, but rather is presented in instalments, organized in a typically non linear pattern. This has been conceptualized in the literature as inverted pyramid as it proceeds gathering all the main points at the beginning and progressing through decreasingly important information. This structure consists of headlined, the attribution (the author’s name), the lead (an initial paragraph that provides a brief but comprehensive summary of the content of the article, and the news story proper, consisting of episodes). There can also be, generally towards the end of the text, the background, covering events prior to the current action, the commentary, providing observations on the action, and the follow-up covering events subsequent to the main action, with frequent recourse to citations of experts’ declarations or institutional statements. As Bell point out, the story cycles round the action, returning for more detail on each circuit and interspersing background and other events. If the journalist is using a research paper, he reorganizes information, information will be typically re-distributed according to the pyramidal or orbital structure. Sometimes this textual reorganization is actually done by journalists, but in many other cases it is effected earlier by the press offices of institutions. 8.3 From specialist knowledge to popularization: case study 1 The main source text is a research article published in Nature. The other elements in the set are a text published on Science Daily, based on the news release, two articles covering the discovery respectively in Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 “The Guardian” and “The Independent”, and a text published on a website “Science Alert”. There are reasons to believe that the popularizing texts are only partially based on the original article. The news release provides a simplified version of the findings set forth in the paper, but also outlines the backstory of the discovery. Extensive quotations are used. Its focus is exclusively on the first part of the original article, while the method section is ignored. While the most technical statements are suppressed, many important points are rephrased. Some features are dealt with more than once in the text, in keeping with news articles’ conventional inverted-pyramidal structure, there are also a new technical denomination, an approximate explication, a paraphrase, metaphors. In terms of overall discursive organization, the original text is highly argumentative. Obviously in the press release the various views and contentions are only minimally reported, then they are either expressed by means of direct and indirect quotations or by presenting them as beliefs, thus highlighting the uncertainty that often characterizes astronomical discoveries. The discussion confirms that already in the first step of the popularization process, the news release issued by the original research institution, the change from an argumentative to an informative and descriptive focus, inherent in popularization, determines a recontextualization of knowledge. 8.3.2 The news article The article published in The Guardian opens with a concise lead announcing the discovery of the new objects, but the text talks about the two already known objects. Everyday language is used, with similes and metaphors, there’s no need to summarize, it reports some the main quotes of the press release, adding a statement. There’s a description of the characteristics, the significance of the research is also pointed out. 8.3.3 A web text The third text considered here is published on one of the most popular science news platforms, which is classified as a blog. Web texts tend to have an inverted-pyramid structure similar to that of news articles, because of their role in spreading news and because this type of structure has also been adopted as the best approach to writing on the web. If in the case of printed news articles the inverted pyramid style has the advantage of making it possible for readers to stop at any time and still get the most important parts of the article, on the web it is even more useful as many users do not scroll and frequently read only the top part of a post. There’s a lead, the text is longer, there are a definition, contractions, humorous statements, the internet is a linking medium and online publication offers the option of relying on hyperlinks to clarify difficult words and notions. The web text seems to be rather accurate in reporting on this scientific breakthrough, following the conventional structure of the news story, but the language used features more typically colloquial expressions and in its initial and final part sports a playful tone, aimed at an entertaining effect. The popularization process knowledge is not only simplified, but also recontextualized. Simplification often means reduction of content, especially in the case of newspaper articles which have to adapt to limited space, sometimes altering the main focus. The impression is that the whole process is aimed at making the findings understandable and interesting for the general public. 8.4 From specialist knowledge to popularization: case study 2 Its reduction and elaboration to make it accessible and at the same time interesting for the lay public involves not only simplification but also a degree of manipulation and a shift in focus to make it relevant for non specialists. This aspect is obviously more prominent when the notions to be popularized concern topics that are of direct interest for ordinary people (health, agriculture, social life, everyday technology). It is not infrequent that journalists manipulate information, ignoring the significance of certain advances for scientists and for the advancement of knowledge, and instead focus on marginal aspects, which however are of interest for the layperson. It has been published in Garzone, it is based on a series of news articles about the incidence of sudden death among cocaine users. The daily mail  it signals the illocutionary value, there’s nominalization, highly evaluative lexis. The daily telegraph  it is less explicit, and it prefers to give meaningful data immediately, the emphasis is Scaricato da Autari Alfieri ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|2316546 still on risk. 8.4.1. General considerations Overall, textual analysis shows that, in addition to the simplification of specialized knowledge extracted from the original paper, the obviously necessary process of reduction is not neutral in the selection of the information, it is "biased' in that it covers extensively certain aspects considered to be of interest for the general public, however secondary or marginal they may be in scientific terms, ignoring others altogether even if they are crucial. If by definition the process of popularization involves not only a change in register, it also entails a conversion of the overall purpose of the text. Its scope is limited to those aspects that may attract the attention of intellectually curious lay readers. Journalists will try to approach it in a way that will arouse as much interest as possible in readers, will make it as newsworthy as possible. This mechanism will not affect all articles in the same degree. There are themes that are great favourites in the popularizing press, because they are part of the topics of the day on which public attention is constantly focused or those that affect the individual’s existential dimension. 8.5 Wikipedia The internet is now playing a very important role in the dissemination of specialist knowledge, favouring a more systematic and more timely circulation of scientific and technological information. An important characteristic of web-mediated communication is the interactivity options it offers. Users can participate by sharing, commenting and expressing likes. They can take advantage of a whole range of internet-specific media (information portals, forums, news feeds, social networking sites, YouTube, Wikipedia) and formats (weblogs, webcasts, tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn posts, videos, Wikis, etc.). Non-experts can also interactively contribute to the transmission of information (social networking sites are a case in point), with various forms of active participation. An interesting case of user generated content is Wikipedia, which has become the most popular information outlet and standard reference on science and technology for millions of people the world over, dealing with any possible topic one may conceive of. Launched on is January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, Wikipedia is a multilingual web-based encyclopedia created and maintained as an open collaboration by a community of volunteer editors using a wiki-based editing system. It has 294 language versions. It is the largest and most popular general reference work on the World Wide Web, and is one of the most popular websites. It features exclusively free content and no commercial ads. Wikipedia is possibly the most successful example of collaborative writing on the internet. Each entry is the result of an interactive process of writing and revision, and is part of a complex system featuring not only a main article, but also various other pages and functions. It also features a huge number of links to references as well as to other articles