Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:46:39.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scientific Speculation and Literary Style in a Molecular Genetics Article

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Greg Myers
Greg Myers
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and Modern English LanguageUniversity of Lancaster
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Stylistic analysis of an admittedly speculative scientific article can suggest what is involved in the social act of speculation. Walter Gilbert's influential paper “Why Genes in Pieces?” serves as an example of the conflicting demands of the need to display politeness and the need to display the urgency and excitement of the issues. Socially significant stylistic features emerge in comparison with another paper Gilbert co-authored, where the speculations occur in the discussion section of an experimental report, and in comparison with another, more typical “News and Views” article by another author. The stylistic features include the use of impersonal subjects, the hedging of verbs, the unusual uses of the present tense, and the reliance on repetition, rather than conjunctions or pronouns, for textual cohesion. Later references to the article assimilate it to various lines of research without suggesting its speculative style.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1991 , pp. 321 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Avers, Charlotte. 1986. Molecular Cell Biology. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Blake, C. C. F. 1978. “Do Genes-in-Pieces Imply Proteins-in-Pieces?” Nature 273:267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bos, J. L., Heyting, C., Borst, P., Arnberg, A. C. and van Bruggen., E. F. J. 1978. “An Insert in the Single Gene for the Large Ribosomal RNA in Yeast Mitochondrial DNA.” Nature 275:336–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Breathnach, Richard, and Pierre, Chambon. 1981. “Organization and Expression of Eucaryotic Split Genes Coding for Proteins.” Annual Review of Biochemistry 50:349–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chambon, Pierre. 1978. “The Molecular Biology of the Eukaryotic Genome Is Coming of Age.” Cold Spring Harbor Symposium Proceedings 42:1209–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crick, Francis. 1979. “Split Genes and RNA Splicing.” Science 204:264–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crick, Francis. 1990. What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Darnell, James E. Jr. and Doolittle., W. F. 1986. “Speculations on the Early Course of Evolution.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 83:1271–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doolittle, W. F. 1978. “Genes in Pieces: Were They Ever Together?” Nature 272:581.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flavell, R. 1982. “The Mystery of the Mouse Alpha-Globin Pseudogene.” Nature 295:370.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, Walter. 1978. “Why Genes in Pieces?” Nature 271:501.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, Walter. 1979. “Introns and Exons: The Playgrounds of Evolution.” In Eukaryotic Gene Regulation, edited by Axel, R., Maniatis, T. and Fox, C. F., 1–12. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Walter. 1981. “DNA Sequencing and Gene Structure” (Nobel Lecture). Science 214:1305–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, Walter. 1985. “Genes-in-Pieces Revisited.” Science 228:823–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Go, Mikito. 1981. “Correlation of DNA Exonic Regions with Protein Structural Units in Haemoglobin.” Nature 291:90–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goodenough, Ursula. 1984. Genetics, 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Saunders College Publishing.Google Scholar
Gribbin, John. 1985. The Search for the Double Helix: Quantum Physics and Life. London: Corgi.Google Scholar
Kolata, Gina Bari. 1980. “The 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.” Science 210:887–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewin, Roger. 1979. “Why Split Genes?” New Scientist, 10 May:452–53.Google Scholar
Lindley, David. 1990. “Commentary: The Embarrassment of Cold Fusion.” Nature 344:375–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmeck, Harold M. Jr. 1981. “‘Nonsense’ in Gene Is Prompting New Thought on Man's Origin.” New York Times, 2 November:C1.Google Scholar
Tonegawa, Susumu, Allan, M. Maxam, Richard, Tizard, Ora, Bernard, and Walter, Gilbert. 1978. “Sequence of a Mouse Germ-Line Gene for a Variable Region of an Immunoglobulin Light Chain.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 75:1485–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williamson, Robert. 1977. “DNA Insertions and Gene Structure.” Nature 270:295–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams-Smith, D. 1987. “The Process of Popularization: Rewriting Medical Research Papers for the Layman: A Discussion Paper.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 80:634–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barber, C. L. 1962. “Some Measurable Characteristics of Modern Scientific Prose.” In Contributions to English Syntax and Phonology, 1–23. Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell. Reprinted in Swales 1985.Google Scholar
Bazerman, Charles, 1988. Shaping Written Knowledge: Studies in the Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Bazerman, Charles, and Paradis, James, eds. 1990. Textual Dynamics of the Professions. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Brannigan, Augustine. 1981. The Social Basis of Scientific Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Levinson, Stephen C.. [1978] 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cantor, Geoffrey. 1985. “Light and Enlightenment: An Exploration of Mid-Eighteenth-Century Modes of Discourse.” In The Discourse of Light from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, edited by Lindborg, David C. and Cantor, G., 69–106. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.Google Scholar
Carter, Ronald, ed. 1982. Language and Literature: An Introductory Reader in Stylistics. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Carter, Ronald, and Simpson, Paul, eds. 1990. Language, Discourse, and Literature. London: Allan and Unwin.Google Scholar
Dear, Peter. 1985. “Totius in Verba: Rhetoric and Authority in the Early Royal Society.” his 76:145–61.Google Scholar
Di Pietro, Robert J., ed. 1982. Linguistics and the Professions. Norwood, N. J.: Ablex.Google Scholar
DuBois, B. L. 1986. “From New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of the American Medical Association through the Associated Press to the Local Newspaper: Scientific Translation for the Laity.” In Wissenschaftssprachen und Gesellschaft: Aspekte der Komunikation und des Wissenstransfers in der heutigen Zeit, edited by Bungarten, T., 243–53. Hamburg: Akademion.Google Scholar
Fahnestock, Jeanne. 1986. “Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts.” Written Communication 3:275–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. 1980. “What Is Stylistics and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things about It?“ In his Is There a Text in This Class? 68–96. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fleck, Ludwik. [1935] 1979. The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Fowler, Roger. 1986. Linguistic Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fowler, Roger, Kress, Gunther, Hodge, R., and Trew, T.. 1979. Language and Control. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Freeman, Donald, ed. 1970. Linguistics and Literary Style. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Freeman, Donald, ed. 1981. Essays in Modern Stylistics. New York and London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Galison, Peter. 1987. How Experiments End. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold, Lynch, Michael, and Livingston, Eric. 1981. “The Work of a Discovering Science Construed with Materials from the Optically Discovered Pulsar.“ Philosophy of the Social Sciences 11:131–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, Nigel, and Mulkay, Michael. 1984. Opening Pandora's Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists' Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Golinski, Jan. 1987. “Robert Boyle: Skepticism and Authority in Seventeenth-Century Chemical Discourse.” In The Figuraland the Literal: Problems of Language in the History of Science and Philosophy 1630–1800, edited by Benjamin, Andrew, Cantor, Geoffrey and Christie, J. R. R., 58–82. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Gopnik, Myrna. 1972. Linguistic Structures in Scientific Texts. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. 1966. “Grammar, Society, and the Noun.” Inaugural lecture delivered at University College, London.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. 1988. “On the Language of Physical Science.” In Written Language: Register and Style, edited by Ghaddessy, M.. London: Frances Pinter.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K., and Hasan, Ruqaiya. 1976. Cohesion in English. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K., and Hasan, Ruqaiya. 1985. Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Victoria: Deakin University Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, Frederic L. 1987. “Scientific Writing and Scientific Discovery.” Isis 78:220–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huddleston, R. D., Hudson, R. A., Winter, E. O., and Henrici, A.. 1968. Sentence and Clause in Scientific English. London: Communication Research Centre, University College, London.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1972. “Hedges: A Study in Meaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concepts.” In Papers from the Eighth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society 8: 183–228.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, and Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno, and Woolgar, Steve. [1979] 1986. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts, 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey. 1966. English in Advertising. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey and Michael, Short. 1981. Style in Fiction. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Lodge, David. 1966. The Language of Fiction. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Lynch, Michael. 1985. Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Miller, Carolyn. 1984. “Genre as Social Action.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 70:151–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulkay, Michael. 1985. The Word and the World. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Myers, Greg. 1989. “The Pragmatics of Politeness in Scientific Articles.” Applied Linguistics 10:1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulkay, Michael. 1990a. “Making a Discovery: Narratives of Split Genes.” In Narrative in Culture The Uses of Storytelling in the Sciences, Philosophy, and Literature, edited by Christopher, Nash, 102–30. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mulkay, Michael. 1990b. Writing Biology: Texts in the Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Mulkay, Michael. 1990c. “Stories and Styles in Two Review Articles.” In Textual Dynamics of the Professions, edited by Bazerman, Charles and Paradis, James, 45–75. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Mulkay, Michael. 1991a. “Lexical Cohesion and Readers' Knowledge in Scientific and Popular Science Texts.” Discourse Processes 14:1–26.Google Scholar
Mulkay, Michael. 1991b. “Politeness and Certainty: The Language of Collaboration in an AI Group.” Social Studies of Science 21:37–74.Google Scholar
Nash, Walter, ed. 1990. The Writing Scholar: Language and Conventions in Academic Discourse. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Nash, Walter and Ronald, Carter. 1990. Seeing Through Language: An Introduction to Styles of English Writing. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Nwogu, Kevin Ngozi. 1989. “Discourse Variation in Medical Texts.” Ph.D. diss., Language Studies Unit, University of Aston, Birmingham.Google Scholar
Potter, Jonathan and Margaret, Wetherell. 1987. Discourse and Social Psychology Beverly Hills and London: Sage.Google Scholar
Rudwick, Martin. 1985. The Great Devonian Controversy: The Shaping of Scientific Knowledge among Gentlemanly Specialists. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, Simon. 1986. “Scientific Discoveries and the End of Natural Knowledge.” Social Studies of Science 16:387–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapin, Steven. 1984. “Pump and Circumstance: Robert Boyle's Literary Technology.” Social Studies of Science 14:481–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Dorothy K. 1984. “Textually Mediated Social Organization.” International Social Science Journal 36:59–75.Google Scholar
Swales, John. 1981. Aspects of Article Introductions. Birmingham: University of Aston, ESP Monographs No. 1Google Scholar
Swales, John. 1990. Genre Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Swales, John. ed. 1985. Episodes in ESP. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Tarone, E., Dwyer, S., Gillette, S., and Icke, V.. 1981. “On the Use of the Passive in Two Astrophysics Journal Papers. ESP Journal 1:123–40. Reprinted in Swales 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, James. [1968] 1980. The Double Helix. Reprint: Gunther Stent, ed. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Woolgar, Steve. 1980. “Discovery: Logic and Sequence in a Scientific Text.” In The Social Processes of Scientific Investigation, edited by Karin Knorr-Cetina, Roger Krohn, and Richard Whitley, 239–68. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Woolgar, Steve. 1986. “Discourse and Praxis.” Social Studies of Science 16:309–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolgar, Steve. 1988. Science: The Very Idea. London/New York: Tavistock/ Methnen.Google Scholar