Scientific Style
Functions
- provides information
- presents exact and relatively complete scientific knowledge
- addresses a relatively small group of professionals well acquainted with the subject
Forms
- primarily written: essays, articles, textbooks, scientific studies
- spoken: presentations, discussions, conferences
- monologue: no feedback, no situational context, no paralinguistic features
Substyles
- the style of exact science: more impersonal
- the style of humanities: closer to the publicistic style, also shares features with the literary style
General Characteristics
- matter-of-fact, clear, explicit; unambiguous, precise; concise, brevet
- stereotypical in terms of both lexicology and syntax
- impersonal, objective, suppresses the personality of the author
- logical hierarchy within the text: introduction, argument, conclusion and résumé
- quotations and references to other texts
- highly nominal character
- diagrams, charts, sketches, illustrations
Morphological Features
- present tense: timeless validity of the proposition
Syntactical Features
- neutral word-order, no marked word-order
- mostly declarative sentences
- sentence condensers /participles, infinitives, gerunds/ and semi-clausal structures
- no ellipsis, no omission of ‘that’ and ‘which’ in relative clauses
- impersonal passive constructions /‘it should be pointed out that…; it has been found out that…; it has previously been shown that…’/
- active construction with the authorial pronoun ‘we’ /‘we deduce, observe, define, obtain, assume, note’/
Causative constructions
- ‘make/render N ADJ’ /‘this makes the problem easy; this renders the metal hard’/
- ‘enable, allow, permit, cause, make INF’ /‘safety valves allow the metal to cool slowly’/
Theme /topic/ > rheme /focus/
- ‘there’ constructions /‘there is, seems, appears, stands, lives, lies’/
- clefts for any constituents but verbal ones /‘it is … that’/
- pseudoclefts for verbal constituents /‘what is…’/
- rheme marked by indefinite article or null article with plural, abstracts, uncountable nouns
- theme marked by definite article, pronouns, anaphoric reference by ‘such, similar, one – the other’
Formulas
- ‘it is ADJ to…’ /‘it is possible, necessary, essential to do sth’/
- ‘it is ADV that…’ /‘it is likely, evident, obvious that…’/
- ‘it is/has been/can be/will be/should be proved/shown/realised’
Semantic condensers
- noun groups /‘starving children government funds’/
- condensed titles /‘the search-and-rescue laser’/
Connectors
- conjunctions ‘thus, however, therefore’ /also ‘furthermore, nevertheless, consequently, etc.’/
- phrases /‘in fact, in short, in general, in this way, in other words, as we have just seen’
- subordinating conjunctions, referential pronouns, demonstrative pronouns /hierarchy/
Modals /must, should, ought, can, may, might/
- little semantic meaning, esp. when followed by verbs ‘to note, notice, remark, observe, mention’
- expression of objective propositional modality /‘it might be remarked that…’/
- ‘should’ preferred to ‘must’ /‘safety precautions should be observed at all times’/
- the verb ‘would’ for repeated action /‘the instrument would give readings every ten minutes’/
- the verbs ‘will, to be, to let’ will little semantic and more modal meaning /‘it is also to be noted that…; it will be noticed that…; let it be mentioned that…’/
- the verbs ‘to seem, to appear’ for understatement for the sake of objectivity
Lexical Features
- most frequent word categories: nouns and adjectives
- terminology = words with clearly defined fixed meaning in a particular scientific discipline
- half-terms shared by all sciences /‘process, effect, feature; to function, operate, modify’/
- bookish words /‘negligible, obviate, propagate’/
- proper names, numbers, figures
- neutral expressions
- no words outside the standard language variety; no dialect, no slang
- no emotional words, no interjections, no phraseology
Special Nomenclature
- scientific terminology: hepatitis, hypnosis, arthritic disorders, virus, millimetre; impressionism, rotunda, mezzo soprano; dolomite prairies, gravely soils, limestone, sea level; Milky Way, black hole; Velvet Revolution
Functions
- provides information
- informs about latest developments in various scientific fields
- presents even complicated topics in an interesting way
- popularises the scientific style
- addresses general public
General Characteristics
- more graphics
- more descriptive
Syntactical Features
- shorter sentences
- ‘to’ infinitive for future /‘computer to design lenses; supermarkets to have laser scanners’/
Lexical Features
- terms explained, demonstrated by an example, paraphrased
- no specific terminology
- emotional words, similes, analogy