Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 MA in ELT, Department of English, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch, Tabriz, Iran.

2 Assistant Professor of TEFL, Department of English, Islamic Azad University, Maragheh Branch, Maragheh, Iran.

Abstract

By the force of our social constructivist gyrations, we have developed glimpses of a social, cultural and historical dimension in which the discourse of science operates. These glimpses indicate us how much the discourse of science is part of complex webs of human’s social interaction. Recognizing this social, cultural and historical nature, the present paper looks at the way informal elements are penetrating into the discourse of science. Working on a corpus of scientific journal articles, scientific magazine articles and scientific newspaper articles, the present article shows that regardless of their generic qualities, communicative purposes and the target audience, all scientific texts included in the three corpora are vulnerable to the penetration of informal elements. However, the differences in terms of communicative purposes and target audiences affect the way informal elements are distributed in the three corpora. Providing a deeper sociolinguistic explanation on the observed variations, the paper is concluded with some implications of the findings for ESP pedagogy.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Article Title [Persian]

گفتمان علمی و نفوذ عناصر غیر رسمی

Abstract [Persian]

با تحمیل گردشهای ساختاری اجتماعی مان، ما بعد اجتماعی، فرهنگی، و تاریخی که در گفتمان علمی انجام می شود را توسعه داده ایم. این نظرهای اجمالی به ما نشان می دهد که چقدر گفتمان علمی جزئی از وب های پیچیده ی ارتباطات اجتماعی انسان است. با تشخیص این خاصیت اجتماعی، فرهنگی، و تاریخی، این مقاله به عناصر غیر رسمی که در گفتمان های علمی هستند، نگاه میکند. با کار کردن روی مقاله های تخصصی علمی، مقاله های علمی مجله ها، و مقاله های علمی روزنامه ها، این مقاله نشان می دهد که علاوه بر خصوصیت های عمومی آنها، که هدف های ارتباطی و مخاطب خاص هستند، تمامی متون علمی در این سه مجموعه به نفوذ عناصر غیر رسمی آسیب پذیر هستند. با این حال، تفاوت هایی که در رابطه با هدفهای ارتباطی و مخاطبین خاص وجود دارد بر عناصر غیر رسمی که در این سه مجموعه تقسیم شده اند اثر می گذارد. با توضیح گفتار جامعه شناسی قوی در تفاوت های بررسی شده،این مقاله با نتایجی برای زبان با اهداف خاص نتیجه گیری کرده است.

Keywords [Persian]

  • عناصر غیر رسمی
  • تعمیم
  • علم
  • گفتمان علمی
  • ارتباطات اجتماعی
Barthes, R. (1970). S/Z, Paris: Seuil.
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical Reason. On the Theory of Action. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In E. Goody (Ed.), Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction (pp. 56-310). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chang, Y., & Swales, J.  (1999). Informal elements in English academic writing: threats or opportunities for advanced non-native speakers? In C. Candlin & K. Hyland (Eds.), Writing: texts, processes and practices. London: Longman.
Crismore, A., & Farnsworth, R.  (1989). Mr. Darwin and his readers: Exploring interpersonal metadiscourse as a dimension of ethos. Rhetoric Review, 8(1), 91-112.
Crismore, A., & Farnsworth, R. (1990). Metadiscourse in popular and professional science discourse. In W. Nash (Ed.), The writing scholar: studies in academic discourse (pp. 118-36). Newsbury Park, CA: Sage.
Curtis, R. (1994). Narrative form and normative force: Baconian story-telling in popular science. Social Studies of Science, 24, 419-461.
Duszak, A. (1994). Academic discourse and intellectual style. Journal of Pragmatics, 21(3),291-313.
Fahnestock, J. (1986). Accommodating science: The rhetorical life of scientific facts. Written Communication, 3(3), 275-296.
Fairclough, N.  (1992a). Intertextuality in critical discourse analysis. Linguistics and Education, 4, 269-293. 
Fairclough, N. (1992b). Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fairclough, N.  (2002). Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: the universities. In M. Toolan (Ed.), Critical discourse analysis: Critical concepts in linguistics, Vol. 2 (pp. 69-103). London and New York: Routledge.
Gergen, K. J.  (1985). The social constructionist movement in modern psychology. American Psychologist, 3, 266-275.
Halliday, M. A. K.  (1993/2004). Writing science: literacy and discursive power. In J. J. Webster (Ed.), The language of science (pp. 119-225). London and New York: Continuum.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.
Hanrahan, M. U. (2010). Highlighting hybridity: A critical discourse analysis of teacher talk in science classrooms. In C. Coffin, T. Lillis and K. O’Halloran (Eds.), Applied linguistics methods: A reader (pp. 148-162). London and New York: Routledge. 
Harwood, N. (2005a). We do not seem to have a theory … The theory I present here attempts to fill this gap: Inclusive and exclusive pronouns in academic writing. Applied Linguistics, 26(3), 343-375.
Harwood, N.  (2005b). ‘Nowhere has anyone attempted … In this article I aim to do just that’: A corpus-based study of self-promotional I and we in academic writing across four disciplines. Journal of Pragmatics, 37, 1207-1231.
Hatim, B., & Mason, I. (1990). Discourse and the translator. London and New York: Routledge.
Henderson, W. (2001). Exemplification strategy in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. In M. Hewings (Ed.), Academic writing in context (pp. 150-168). Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham Press.
Hoey, M. (1988). Writing to meet the reader’s needs: Text patterning and reading strategies. Trondheim Papers in Applied Linguistics, IV, 15-73. 
Hoey, M. (2000). Persuasive rhetoric in linguistics: A stylistic study of some features of the language of Noam Chomsky. In S. Hunston and G. Thompson (Eds.), Evaluation in text (pp. 28-37). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hoey. M. (2001). Textual interaction: An introduction to written discourse analysis. London and New York: Routledge.
Hunston, S. (1994). Evaluation and organization in a sample of written academic discourse. In M. Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in written text analysis (pp. 191-218). London and New York: Routledge.
Hyland, K. (2006). English for academic purposes: An advanced resource book. London and New York: Routledge.
Hyland, K.  (2009). Academic discourse. Continuum. 
Hyland, K., & Jiang, K. (2017). Is academic writing becoming more informal? English for Specific Purposes, 45, 40-51.
Knorr-Cetina, K. (1981). The manufacture of knowledge. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 
Kristeva, J. (1986). The Kristeva reader (Ed. T. Moi). Oxford: Blackwell.
Kuhi, D. (2011). Generic variations and metadiscourse use in the writing of applied linguists: A comparative study and a preliminary framework. Written Communication, 28(1), 97-141.
Kuhi, D. (2014). Commodified discourses, commodifying discourses: In pursuit of a theoretical model on the constitutive functioning of academic discourse in marketization of higher education. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Discourse Analysis, 2(1), 39-62. 
Kuhi, D., & Alinejad, Y. (2015). Stephen Hawking’s community-bound voice: A functional investigation of self-mentions in Stephen Hawking’s scientific discourse. The journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(17), 82-99. 
Kuhi, D. (2017). Hybridity of Scientific Discourses: An Intertextual Perspective and Implications for ESP Pedagogy. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Applied Literature: Dynamics and Advances, 5(2), 61-80.
Martin, J. R. (2000). Beyond exchange: Appraisal systems in English. In S. Hunston and G. Thompson (Eds.), Evaluation in text (pp. 142-175). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
Mei, S. W., & Allison, D.  (2005). Evaluative expressions in analytical arguments: aspects of appraisal in assigned English language essays. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2(1), 105-127. 
Miller, C., & Charney, D. (2008). Persuasion, audience and argument.  In C. Bazerman (Ed.), Handbook of research on writing: History, society, school, individual, text (pp. 583-598). London and New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 
Myers, G. (1994). Narratives of science and nature in popularizing molecular genetics. In M. Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in written text analysis (pp. 179-190). London: Routledge.
Nelson, N. (2008). The reading-writing nexus in discourse research. In C. Bazerman (Ed.), Handbook of research on writing: History, society, school, individual, text (pp. 435-449). London and New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 
Putnam, L. L.  (2009). Symbolic capital and academic fields: An alternative discourse on journal rankings. Management Communication Quarterly, 23(1), 127-134.
Thompson, G. (2001). Interaction in academic writing: learning to argue with the reader. Applied Linguistics, 22(1), 58-78. 
Weissberg, R., & Buker, S. (1990). Writing up research. London: Prentice-Hall International (UK) Limited.
Whitely, P. (2000). Economic growth and social capital. Political Studies, 48(3), 443-466.
Widdowson, H. G. (1984). Explorations in applied linguistics 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Widdowson, H. G. (2003). Defining issues in English language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yakhontova, T. (2002). ‘Selling’ or ‘telling’? The issue of cultural variation in research genres. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academic discourse (pp. 216-213). London: Longman.