Post on 24-Apr-2023
АНО ВПО«МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЙ ГУМАНИТАРНО-ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЙ
ИНСТИТУТ»
Курсовая работа
по дисциплине: Стилистика английского языка
на тему: Научно-популярный стиль Style of Popular Scientific Prose
Выполнил: студентка _3__курсафакультета иностранных языков
_очной_формы обучения (очной, очно-заочной, заочной)
Батракова Мария Александровна_
(ФИО)
Научный руководитель:___________________________
(ученая степень, звание, ФИО)
Дата сдачи:«____»_______декабря__________ 2014_г.
Дата защиты:«____»__________________ 20__г
Оценка_____________________________
Москва, 2014
Table of ContentIntroduction.……………………………………………………………3Chapter 1. Scientific style……….……………………………………..5
1.1 Popular scientific prose style……………………………………5
1.2 Style shaping properties………………………………………..11
Chapter 2. Peculiarities of popular scientific prose……………………16Conclusion……………………………………………………………..26References……………………………………………………………...27
2
Introduction
Language we use in any specific situation
varying according to the purpose and content of
the situation. Different functional styles
characterize a certain situation. I.R. Galperin,
the well-known Russian linguist, distinguishes
the following functional styles:
1)The belles-letters style
2)Publicist style
3)Newspaper style
4)Scientific prose style
5)The style of official documents.3
In this term paper we deal with the
scientific prose style and its sub-style, popular
scientific prose style.
According to the point of view of McMillan, the
purpose of science as a branch of human activity
is to disclose by research the inner substance of
things and phenomena of objective reality and
find out the laws regulating them, thus enabling
man to predict, control and direct their future
development in order to improve the material and
social life of mankind [McMillan, 2001: 314].
Scientific prose helps us to reveal and
understand all the features of scientific
phenomenon as they are.
The goal of this term paper is to analyse
stylistics of the popular scientific prose.
To attain the target, we set the following
objectives:
1) To distinguish scientific and popular
scientific literature
2) To outline style shaping properties of
popular scientific prose
3) To examine the corpus of different
articles to reveal the communicative and
linguistic peculiarities 4
4) To look into stylistic devices that are
used in popular prose literature
This theme is very interesting for us, because
we are living in the age of advanced technology,
when achievements of scientific and technological
progress strongly come into lives of ordinary
people and science becomes part and parcel of
mass culture elements. Particularly, popular
scientific literature is called to fulfill this
important social order and to introduce vast
masses to the achievements of science.
The object of the term paper is popular
scientific prose.
The subject of the term paper is stylistic
peculiarities of popular scientific prose.
All the illustrative examples were taken
mostly from journals “National Geographic” and
“Scientific American”.
The methodological basis is founded on the
works of such distinguished linguists as I. R.
Galperin, W. Gilman, A. L. Nazarenko, D. Crystal,
O. Lehtsalu and others.
My term paper consists of Introduction,
two chapters, conclusion and bibliography.5
Chapter 1. Scientific style
1.1 Scientific prose style
For the further analysis the terms
‘style’ and ‘stylistics’ should be defined. But
the term ‘style’ is polysemantic. Tentatively,
language style maybe defined as a more-or-less
coherent system, a subsystem (or microsystem)
within a language, consisting of certain lexico-
phraseological, grammatical and phonetical
resources of that language, which are used
selectively and purposefully to express ideas in
given situation [Lehtsalu, 1973: 13].
6
The study of language styles is the
concern of linguo-stylistics. Put in another way,
linguo-stylistics is a branch of stylistics which
deals with the expressive and stylistic means of
language, their relation to the idea or ideas
expressed, and the classification and
peculiarities of the existing styles of a
language. Linguo-stylistics and literary
stylistics complement each other and together
they constitute what may be called general
stylistics [Lehtsalu, 1973: 13].
We are interested in functional styles,
specifically, in scientific prose style.
I. R. Galperin describes functional styles of
language (FS) as types of texts that are
distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the
communication [Galperin, 2014: 9].
The aim of the scientific prose style is
to describe a phenomenon of science precisely, to
reveal all the peculiarities of subject in
question. The language of scientific prose is
determined by a desire to prove hypothesis, to
state laws, define concepts, etc. Hence the main
problem is to establish a clear and logical
progression of ideas and define the subject-
matter precisely. For the purpose of precision7
the clarity, logical coherence, specific
vocabulary and special syntax are employed
[Shakkhovsky, 2008: 86].
Scientific language is used in reporting
an experiment, in discussing a problem, in giving
instructions as to how an experiment should be
performed, in stating laws, or in defining
concepts. It is generally agreed that the main
problem for the scientist, as far as his use of
language is concerned, is to define his subject
matter precisely and to establish a clear and
logical progression of ideas [Crystal, 1969:
251].
As far as the vocabulary of scientific
prose is concerned, we can say that special terms
and professional words are an indispensible part
of vocabulary, as well as Greek and Latin words
and forms (datum-data, formula-formulae, etc):
e.g. “Memorizing to-do lists and mathematical
formulae came much later in our intellectual, social, and
and neurological development.”
e.g. “The rhyme- formulae of the latter six lines are here
curiously varied. Working those formulae out is a college
calculus problem.”
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/formulae)8
Most words are of abstract meaning:
“The progress which has been and is being made in
human institutions and in human character may be set
down, broadly, to a natural selection of the fittest habits
of thought and to a progress of enforced adaptation of
individuals to an environment which ahs progressively
changed with the growth of the community and with the
changing institutions under which men have lived.”
[Shakkhovsky, 2008: 88]
Polysemantic words are avoided, as the
exposition of scientific ideas requires clarity
and exactness.
The terms used in any specific science is
something referred to as ‘jargon’. Scientists
attempt to establish themselves as professionals
of their disciplines by using specialist
terminology. However, jargon sometimes decreases
readability and distracts readers from the main
focus of the paper. When using jargon, it is very
important to keep the audience in mind, and
consciously consider when and how often to
utilize specialized vocabulary. Here is the
example of the ‘jargon’ usage:9
“Heavy metals” – The term is often used to describe toxic
metal elements such as mercury and lead. However, a
reader has no way to quantify how much an atom must
weigh to be considered “heavy,” and there are nontoxic
elements with greater atomic weights than either mercury
or lead. Unless the reader already knows exactly which
metals the jargon describes, the term offers little
clarification.
(http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/
scientific-jargon.original.pdf)
The goal of using special terms and
scientific words is to avoid ambiguity in
scientific texts, i.e. to achieve clarity. The
author of “The Language of Science, William
Gilman, claims, that:
“The boldness of clarity, then, is our goal – clarity in
sentence and paragraph, clarity in organization of the
whole. Clarity is demanded of the person writing in the
fields of science and technology. Clarity is also required
from many others who don’t work right inside those fields
but have to deal with them. Clarity first. After that be a
virtuoso if you like. Fancy flourishes are not forbidden…
Whether in press releases, magazine articles,
professional-society papers, technical books, research
10
proposals, or simply progress reports to management,
the need is for clarity, clarity.”
[Gilman, 1961: 4]
An example of ambiguity and its correction
is offered in the same book. Clarity is achieved
owning to syntax:
Wrong:
“This is a process to convert low-grade iron ore, which
has been found expensive. (The “which” portion was
evidently tacked on as an afterthought, then a comma
inserted to cure the trouble, but the “which” still leaves us
guessing. What’s costly – the process or the ore?
Right: This process to convert low-grade iron ore has
been found expensive.
Or another right variant: This process converts low-grade
iron ore, but has been found expensive.
[Gilman, 1961: 97]
W. Gilman argues that writing a scientific
text is communication and communication demands
clarity. Now we can be sure, that ambiguity
creates a lot of problems, for example,
misunderstanding, and to avoid it we should use11
all the components of the sentence precisely and
in a logic way. The scientific prose is strictly
logical; hence abundant use of connective
elements with subordination prevailing over
coordination.
The style of scientific prose is
predominantly unemotional. Mostly it deals with
the facts:
e.g. “The purified peroxide, which is generally
crystalline, is added to the aromatic solvent, and the
decomposition is effected by heating, usually to about 70-
80 °C.”
To achieve clarity it deprives
emotionality. Yet emotiveness is not entirely
excluded, especially in the humanities, in which
a certain element of emotiveness makes itself
evident. It may be felt in the choice and use of
words (intensifiers are frequent makers), but
stylistic devices employed are trite, not
original:
e.g. “The contrivance, admirable in a theoretical point
of view, was found impracticable.”
Side by side with emotionlessness we can
say that scientific prose style is impersonal. 12
The desire to achieve impersonality when
proving scientific ideas is reflected in frequent
use of passive constructions:
“It has been investigated by Horner and Naumann (1954)
and Huisgen and Nakaten (1954), and was found to
involve a primary dissociation into phenyl and
triphenylmethyl radicals and nitrogen, in the manner
indicated in equation.”
[Crystal, 1969: 252]
The goal of this is to achieve neutralism
and objectivity of studying phenomenon making the
author a detached observer. It may lead to
overdoing accessive detachment.
Scientists by the way are themselves aware
of the dangers of too much complexity,
abstraction, and impersonality in their work, as
the following quotation from the Handbook for
Chemical Society Authors shows:
“Sentences such as “Reducation of the ketone was
effected catalytically” (which should read “Hydrogenation
of the ketone gave”) suffer from the abstract word and
the passive voice…Before the final typing every paper
should be scrutinized to see whether it cannot be
improved by eliminating abstract words and passive
voices.”13
[D.Crystal, 1969: 251] All these peculiarities of the scientific
prose style are common and encapsulated in strong
frames, but the concept of its sub-style, popular
scientific prose style, is much varied in terms
of using stylistic devices. It brings us to the
popularization of science. It is directly related
to the nature and structure of the text as well
as the usage of language means. This allows us to
speak about specific characteristics of popular
scientific prose style representation. Different researchers name them in
different ways, but all of them certainly include
two opposite parameters: objectivity (authenticity,
clarity, which we discussed earlier and which are
the attributes of scientific prose style) and
subjectivity (such as vividness, emotionality,
subjective evaluation etc.) [Kirichenko, 1991:
23].
This happens when popular scientific
literature having a scientific fact as the object
of description, makes an extensive use of fiction
“arsenal”. That is why popular scientific
14
literature lies on the border of two spheres of
the language usage: science and verbal art.
Dynamic system of language impacts such
stylistic features as simplicity and artistry of
representation. These means are not independent
and play subsidiary role in the popular
scientific literature contributing to the
achievement of the main aim – introducing to the
reader serious scientific information in a
popular and interesting way [Nazarenko, 2004: 8].
In the next section we will discuss style
shaping properties which include expressive means
and stylistic devices.
1.2 Style shaping properties
Linguistic science points out that the
most important thing in stylistics is the
interrelation of the means of expression and the
subject-matter, i.e. of the expressive means of a
language and the idea expressed.
When speaking of the expressive means of
language, we think of the arrangement of
sentences, clauses, words, and the choice of
words which not only convey the idea to the
15
reader or listener, but simultaneously provoke
the desired emotional reaction from him.
The expressive means of a language may be
classified as:
1.Lexical (the various stylistic aspects of
words and phraseological units, such as
poetic words, archaic words, neologisms,
etc.)
2.Grammatical (mainly syntactical; inversion
elliptical sentences, repetition in exited
speech, etc.)
3.Phonetic (euphony, intonation, rhythm, etc.)
Any expressive means may be used in this way
for specific artistic purposes, and when so
employed, it is described as a stylistic
device. The latter may be regarded as an
artistic transformation of an ordinary
language phenomenon.
Expressive and stylistic means were
mentioned above, thus we should define meanings
of some of them used in scientific and popular
scientific literature.
1.Metaphors.
Metaphor is transference of meaning based
on the similarity of two notions. Metaphors16
are hardly ever used in scientific texts.
However, to express one’s ideas in a more
graphic and convincing way, metaphors are
sometimes resorted to. It is in popular-
scientific texts that metaphors are more
frequently used to make scientific problems
more accessible to the reader:
e.g. “The buffeting-about of the incoming
word often results, in the end, in a single
surviving and fixed shape”.
[Lehtsalu, 1973: 22]
In this case the metaphor “buffeting-
about of the…” strikes by its strength and
emotionality.
Besides, popular scientific texts are
full of trite metaphors:
e.g. “Thankfully, the Ziara Ringshows that there’s a
better, bigger and bolder way to win her heart ”
(National Geographic, 2004)
Metaphors in scientific texts are used with a
view to add figurativeness to the
description.
2.Epithets.
Epithet is a figure of speech denoting a
permanent or temporary quality of a person,17
thing, idea or phenomenon and characterizing
it from the point of view of subjective
perception. An epithet can be expressed by an
attributive word, phrase, combination of
words or sometimes by a whole sentence
[Lehtsalu, 1973: 32].
An epithet has always an emotional meaning
or connotation. The emotional meaning may
either accompany the denotational meaning or
it may exist independently. Due to their main
function of subjective assessment or
evaluation epithets are seldom used in
scientific prose with the exception of
articles of a polemic character. However, in
scientific prose style epithets are used widely
to interest a reader. They literally strike a
person by the vividness and emotional charge:
e.g. “I couldn’t stop reading about the freakish
gargantuan tornado overtaking the doomed
scientists and other victims.”
e.g. “Under Mandela’s charmed guidance, South
Africa began the post-apartheid period as a country
beguiled by its own miraculous stepping back from
the brink of a full-blown race war”.18
(National Geographic, 2003)
3.Emotionality
In contrast to scientific prose style
popular scientific prose is very emotive.
First of all, a form “question-answer” is used
to establish the contact with readers and to
govern readers’ attention. This creates the
atmosphere of dialog and the reader becomes
interested in subject:
e.g “Will you help save big cats, preserve ancient
civilizations, and protect our precious oceans? By
including National Geographic in your estate plans,
you will share in Alexander Graham Bell’s vision of
preserving our planet for generations to come.”
(National Geographic, 2005)
In the next example the emotionality
of the text is also emphasized by the usage of
exclamation mark:
e.g. “So now we want to know, where do these bees
live? How far do they travel? Do they like only the big
forest, or can they live in the small bits and corridors
too? Many questions!”
(National Geographic, 2004)
It is important to know that
popularization of science started long time ago,
19
so in XVII century Cyrano de Bergerac made a
considerable contribution in popularization of
science. He tried to “disguise “ the complexity
of new heliocentric theory of our Galaxy and
represented it as a fairy-tale about the journey
to the Moon and the Sun [Nazarenko, 2000: 56].
Such way of representation can quickly
interest the reader and draw his or her attention
to the subject.
The interesting fact is that stylistic
devices are often used not only to give
vividness, but lead to the exactness of described
phenomenon.
Even Descartes used in his treatises such
stylistic devices as simile and metaphors for the
illustrative purposes in order to make abstract
notions more comprehensible:
“Throughout my writings I have made it clear that my
method imitates that of the architect. When an architect
wants to build a house which is stable on ground where
there is a sandy topsoil over underlying rock, or clay, or
some other firm base, he begins by digging out a set of
trenches from which he removes the sand, and anything
resting on or mixed in with the sand, so that he can lay his
20
foundations on firm soil. In the same way, I began by
taking everything that was doubtful and throwing it out,
like sand; and then, when noticed that it is impossible to
doubt that a doubting or thinking substance exist, I took
this as the bedrock on which I could lay the foundations
of my philosophy.”
Just an architect who wants to build a
stable house must find a firm base for it, so
Descartes who wants to establish stable knowledge
must doubt everything in order to find a firm
base to his beliefs [Thagard, 2004: 505]. In this
abstract Descartes employs simili which is used
to appeal to the reader’s imagination, thus
inspiring his interest in the scientific subject.
For the same effect a popular scientific writer
employs colorful descriptions:
e.g. “He is a short man, with a kind face, a trim beard,
and eyes that sparkle yet remain distant, as if peering
somewhere else, a distant horizon or a place in the past
where he dared not to go.”
(National Geographic, 2003)
All the examples above show us that
reading the popular scientific literature will
not drive us to boredom, because the usage of21
stylistic devices makes the texts interesting and
vivid.
In this chapter we discussed the
differences between scientific prose style and
its sub-style, popular scientific prose. We
highlighted that scientific prose is defined by
clarity, logical representation, monosematic
words, special vocabulary and unemotionality. At
the same time in popular scientific prose a lot
of stylistic devices are employed to create
vividness to interest the reader.
In the next chapter we will directly
discuss some peculiarities and the examples of
the usage of different stylistic devices in
popular scientific literature.
Chapter 2. Peculiarities of popularscientific prose
22
The core of any popular scientific text is
terminology, the main characteristics of which
are the aspiration for unambiguity and absence of
emotional expressive evaluative connotations,
i.e. the capability of precise expression of
specific notions.
Investigating popular scientific texts we
can notice the usage of specific terms even in
the texts, which are orientated on the reader
rather distant from the concerned field.
e.g. “The child begins his game of world-picture
modelling at some intermediate period previous to
parturition and his traumatic expulsion into the external
world. It is as difficult to define this period as it is to define
when the foetus has become human. One might be
tempted to define it as the period when the nervous system
has developed. That will not do either: there are many
species with nothing like man's nervous system who have
no difficulty in carrying on the game of life, of trial and
error, of hypothesis formulation, testing of the hypothesis
or its retention...”
[Sherman, 1989: 636]
In the next examples the usage of specific terms is evident:
23
e.g. “Well, if you start with 1 and continue doubling
indefinitely, you will have a series of numbers which, by
appropriate addition, can be used to express any finite
number at all.”
e.g. “Therefore, instead of writing out all the 2's, it
would be convenient to note how many 2's are being
multiplied together by using an exponential method. “
e.g. “In the case of mechanics, the outstanding
achievement was a successful Quantitative description of
the motion of freely falling bodies.”
e.g. “Not only was this description sophisticated and
exact, but it also introduced the first Quantitative concept
for measuring change of state of motion, that of
acceleration.”
[Hartfopf, 1965: 17]
This is as far as the similarity with the
scientific prose is concerned.
To involve the reader in the process of thinking
and discussion many authors aspire to establish a
dialog between him or her and the reader. The
explicity of dialog in popular scientific texts
is achieved by the usage of interrogative and
hortatory sentences, and personalized manner of
narration.
24
Interrogative constructions are visible
part of the dialog and their aim is to provoke
the reader’s response and involve him or her in
the discussion and to enhance the activity of
perception:
e.g. “How can we measure a tiny difference?”
e.g. “How is it possible?”
e.g. “Do you remember the problem on paper sizes in
Chapter 1?»
e.g. “A question comes immediately to mind: Did the
pattern of mass arise out of logical necessity, or was it
simply random?”
e.g. “What is this force and where did it come from?”
(National Geographic, 2003) Among these interrogative constructionsrhetorical questions are notable for theirspecific stylistic loading. Rhetorical question doesn’t need ananswer, the answer is already included in it.Rhetorical question is put with the aim ofattraction of the reader’s attention, increasingthe emotional tone of the narration and makingthe reader draw a conclusion himself or herself:
“And grammar? Who needs the eternal hair-splitting
arguments about "shall" and "will" or "which" and "that"?
The uselessness of it can be demonstrated by the fact that
25
virtually no one gets it straight anyway. Aside from losing
valuable time, blunting a child's reasoning faculties, and
instilling him or her with a ravening dislike for the English
language, what do you gain? “
(Scientific American, 2000)A chain of rhetorical questions we can find in the next abstract:
“What then is time? Is it a devouring monster described by
the Reverend Bramston? Or is it an ever-rolling stream
bearing everything away to some other place? Or could
time be likened to the irascible old gentleman who
revenged himself on the Mad Hatter by keeping the time
at 6 o'clock tea time all day and every day for months?”
(Scientific American, 2001)
Thus the author inclines the reader tothe necessity of answer, and later he prompts theanswer himself or herself preparing the situationwhen the reader perceives this answer as his ownwhat psychologically contributes to the optimallearning of the fact under discussion.
Constant appeal to the interlocutor istypical for the colloquial speech reflecting inthe popular scientific prose in the usage ofhortatory sentences:
26
e.g. “Have a good look at these numbers!
e.g. “Don't be disheartened if you notice that 10' is a
power of 10, while V 10 which is exactly the same thing, is
a root of 10.
Imagine a large heavy ball rolling slowly across a level
floor.”
[Bakst, 1997: 459]e.g. “This we call a "galactic year" or better, a
"galyear." (An ugly word, but nevermind!) “
e.g. “The true value of /тс/ can only be expressed as
an infinite series. Alas! But shed no tears! Once л was
proved irrational, mathematicians were satisfied.”
[Bakst, 1997: 842]
This illustrates a maximum orientation on the
reader in order to create the ‘atmosphere of
credence’ between the author and the reader.
Constant fixed regard to the reader is
expressed in the usage of pronouns ‘you’ and
‘your’ instead of ‘one” establishing close
contact between the author and the reader:e.g. “You can play a large number of games”.
e.g. “Have you ever walked along a railroad track? If
you have, you must have noticed that the rails seem to
meet far away in a point.”
27
e.g. “For "three" you could not point to eyes or ears or
feet... but you could use three fingers or three pebbles or
three sticks.”
[Carroll, 1968: 60]e.g. “Can anyone possibly be sorry that all that cute
provincial flavor has vanished? Are you sorry that every
time you travel out of the state you don't have to throw
yourself into fits of arithmetical discomfort whenever you
want to make a purchase?”
[Carroll, 1968: 70]
Slang and colloquial lexicon alsocontribute to an intimization of narrationdiminishing the ‘barrier’ of officialitybetween the author and the reader:
e.g. “By this point, however, it is just possible that some
of you may suspect me of pulling a fast one.”
e.g. “Why it should be called the average value heaven
only knows. “
e.g. “Now why on Earth should our unit ratios vary all
over the lot, when our number system is so firmly based
on 10»
e.g. “The lie detector immediately recorded that he was
telling a whopping.”
[Dodgeson, 1972: 167]
28
e.g. “This assertion seems at first to be downright
nonsense.
e.g. “The boat kept swaying, pitching, yawing, heaving,
rolling and otherwise making a jackass of itself all night
long!”
a jackass (not fml): a fool
e.g. “There is no way of estimating and the continuous-
creation boys consider its lifetime to be eternal.”
e.g. “When any symbol (which includes figures, letters
or any other squiqgle we may be using) is multiplied by
itself it is said to be squared.”
(National Geographic, 2005)e.g. “Newton also showed this central-point business to
be true for spheres which consisted of a series of layers...”
e.g. “Then along came the Greeks and developed a
system of geometry that would have none of this vile lav-
down-a-string-and-measure-it-with-a-ruler business.”
e.g. “What is all this?" comes the fevered demand.
"Where does this 'divide by 10' jazz come from?”
(Scientific American, 2004)Owning to such representation the reader gets
the information in the accessible form. Creation of the narration expressiveness is
one more stylistic method of popular scientificrepresentation.
29
As we have already mentioned, the
authors of popular scientific literature employ a
number of stylistic devices and means such as
epithets, metaphors, simile to make texts more
interesting and vivid. In the extract below taken
from “Words in the Mind”, its author, Jean
Aitchison, gives some explanations on the concept
of “mental maps” in linguistics comparing to some
other concepts, a map of the London Underground
in particular:
“Model of the mind built by psycholinguists are
somewhere in between the concrete models of spacecraft
and the abstract models of economists. Perhaps the best
analogy is that of a map, which in some fits a ‘real life’
state of affairs and in other ways is quite different. It is
obvious that the most useful map is often not an exact
representation of the terrain. The well-known map of the
London Underground…provides an elegant way od
summarizing essential information…It sacrifices realism
but given its purpose is a better map for doing so…The
map tells us clearly which train-lines connect with
stations…We do not expect either the trains of the
railways lines to be painted this color. Nor do we expect
the distances between stations to be accurately
represented…”
30
As it follows the text is rich in words
that belong to a normal literary layer of the
language. Words magically match the linguistic
terms and the concept that the author is
explaining here:
“We are trying, then, to produce a diagram of the
connections in the mental lexicon which in some respect
comparable to a plan of the London Underground.
However, there is one way in which this mental map is
quite different. We can go down in the Underground and
map the connections between stations. But we cannot
view the connections in the mind directly. We are instead
in the situation of observers who could watch passengers
entering and leaving train stations but could neither
enter the system nor communicate directly with the
travelers…”
This description is the great example
of an extended metaphor, which helps us to
understand the concept of “mental maps”
better.
Scientists who are engaged in humanitarian
studies resort to imagery and colorful
comparisons that help to clarify abstract ideas
transmitted to the addressee through a scientific
article or report.
31
Popular scientific texts abound with a
great number of epithets:
e.g. “The beautiful geometric reasoning was
abandoned...»
e.g. “Descartes demonstrated the power of a
remarkable format for constructing a law of nature, the
conservative law”
e.g. “The excerpt is an excellent example of Galileo's
forensic style.”
e.g. “...the belief in pure action at a distance became the
supreme test of rationalism .)
e.g. “He made his first attempt at his celebrated
experiment. The familiarity with which most of us are able
to use our present-day number system conceals the
superb feat of ingenuity that was its creation...”
(New Scientist, 2007)e.g. “Euler published a tremendously successful
popularization of science in 1768.»
e.g. “Mathematics, which is so often considered to be a
shining example of neatness and logic. ..»
e.g. “...mankind has nevertheless reached a position of
unparalleled domination of the planet. ”
e.g. “These three laws, so easily stated, sum up the
important results obtained in a prodigious amount of
brilliant mental and physical work extending over many
decades”. 32
(National Geographic, 2004)
We mentioned the usage of metaphors in popularscientific literature. They are used to createvividness of representation and give theinformation in the accessible way and to describethe fact in question in the understandablemanner:
e.g. “Since for more than 2000 years mathematics had
been the bastion of truth of non-Euclidean geometry, the
triumph of reason, proved to be an intellectual disaster.”
e.g. “The plane, however, is a peculiar pancaked
world.”
e.g. “Gravitational collapse is thus both the midwife
and the undertaker of astrophysics.”
The planets, however, are mavericks.
(American Scientist, 2003)e.g. “The President may have picked his gladiator, but
there is no need to give him marching orders for a month
or two.”
(About Boeing company)
e.g. “This /imagination/ has always been the driving
wheel of scientific creativity.”
33
e.g. “And with the new universe comes a new toss of the
cosmic dice...”
e.g. “The operator which usually goes by the cryptic title of
"j" could be classed as a kind of abominable snowman of
mathematics.”
e.g. “If we agree that numbers used in this way have a
touch of "operator blood" in them we must agree that the
minus sign is a veritable half-caste.”
e.g. “Fortunately for our purposes, there is no need to
resurrect any of these bygone tribulations.”
(National Geographic, 2004)The metaphors in these examples strike the
imagination of the reader making him or her create images and understand the subject in question more clear.
Thus we showed how authors employed differentstylistic devices and language means to makepopular scientific literature colorful andinteresting for the reader. A number of languagemeans are called to establish intimate connectionbetween the author and the reader, involving thelatter in the scientific discussion.
34
Conclusion
In this term paper we discussed popular
scientific prose style as a part of scientific prose.
We described the peculiarities of scientific style and
popular scientific prose, their differences and what
they have in common. Thomas Andrew argues that the
language of science is governed by the aim of the
functional style of scientific prose, which is to prove
a hypothesis, to create new concepts, to disclose the
internal laws of existence, development, relations
between different phenomena, etc. The language means
used, therefore, tend to be objective, precise,
unemotional, and devoid of any individuality; there is
a striving for the most generalized form of expression
[Thomas, 1990: 245]. At the same time popular
scientific style is varied according to the usage of
different language means as epithets, metaphors, simile making
popular scientific literature emotional, expressive and
interesting.
Side by side with the peculiarities above
language means are called to establish contact between
the author and the reader making the information
comprehensible. This intimization leads to an
acquirement of knowledge by the reader.
Popularization of science plays a very
important role in the modern world giving an access to
the essence of things not resorting to high complexity
of scientific texts. A person of a particular sphere
can become aware of completely different field
regarding to popular scientific literature.
Alan Paige Lightman, the American physicist, writer,
and social entrepreneur, claims that a real scientist
isn’t a real scientist if he can’t explain his theory
to a common barman in order the latter understands it.
Thus we can say that popularization of science is even
important for the scientists themselves [Hawking, 2003:
208].
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