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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