ESP texts English for Science and Technology

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ESP texts English for Science and Technology
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ESP

• The way in which English varies according to its
  use in particular situations gt
• English for Special/Specific Purposes
• (vs General English)
• examples...

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• ESP is classified in terms of
• Field of discourse gtshared vocabulary
• Purpose (functional tenor)
• Description, report, exposition, instruction,
  argumentation
• MEDIUM
• ESP is more strongly oriented towards written
  forms

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• The complete grammar of General English belongs
  to ESP
• Same processes of morphology and word formation
• The selection of vocabulary is influenced by the
  field
• Terminology is at least partially standardised to
  avoid ambiguity
• Special visual elements may be employed.
• English is selected, restricted, special

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EST (English for Science and Technology)

• Greater frequency of the passive
• Greater frequency of non-defining relative
  clauses compared to defining ones
• Specific, frequently employed, rhetorical devices
  such as anaphora, parallelism, parenthetical
  elements, emphatic inversion, rhetorical
  questions, ellipsis
• Nominal style
• Occurrence of new plurals (fats, oils) and Latin
  and Greek plurals

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SCIENTIFIC ENGLISH

• Neutral, unemotional, objective tone
• Abbreviations, numerals, symbols
• Lexical density
• Impersonal style
• Passive forms
• Selection of pronouns employed (we/this/these
  less so I, he, even less so she, you)
• Noun phrases with complex structures
• (e.g. transparent removable alignment grid)
• Compactness of structure (use of parentheses)
• Low use of cohesive devices

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verbs

• High frequency with which the passive voice
  occurs
• The passive allows the author to step back so
  that the work reported on stands at the centre of
  attention.
• Several interviews were conducted to substantiate
  this hypothesis (We conducted several
  interviews)
• In English the topic of a sentence is usually
  named at the beginning and what is said about it
  at the end. The passive allows a direct or
  indirect object which is the topic to occupy the
  initial thematic position.
• The passive is used to express the writer
  distance
• Tenses
• The present tense is used to describe the
  scientific apparatus. But if it is historical or
  no longer in use, the past is used.

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Verbs

• Verbs of exposition
• Ascertain, assume, compare, construct, describe,
  determine, estimate, examine, explain, label,
  plot, record, test, verify
• Verbs of warning and advising
• Avoid, check, ensure, notice, present, remember,
  take care
• Verbs of manipulation
• Adjust, align, assemble, begin, boil, clamp,
  connect, cover, decrease, dilute, rotate, weigh
• Adjectival modifiers
• Ful(ly), clockwise, continuous(ly), gradual(ly),
  periodical(ly), subsequent(ly)

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Lexicon and word formation in ESTThe lexicon of
special languages is their most obvious
distinguishing characteristic

• The vocabulary of ESP will often contain words
  which cannot be found outside the given field
• International vocab., often based on reek and
  Latin elements
• It is standardised and as unambiguous as possible
• It is non-emotive in tone
• It favours certain processes of word formation
• It incorporates symbols

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Nominalisation

• Replacement of clauses which contain finite verbs
  with complex structures consisting of nouns and
  noun adjuncts
• (because of the surface of the retina is
  spherical gt because of the sphericity of the
  retinal surface
• Prepositional phrases tend to disappear
• (experiments of transfer of momentum gt momentum
  transfer experiments

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Pre/postmodification

• Adjective (central bank), nouns (sodium
  chloride), possessive forms (Alzheimers desease)

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terminology

• Exact (they designate a particular meaning)
• Unambiguous (the cannot be confused with the
  meaning of any other term)
• Unique (one and only term is available)
• Systematic (they are part of a larger, ordered
  system of terms)
• Neutral (oriented towards cognition and objective
  processes, do not include emotive elements)
• Self-explanatory or transparent (they include
  elements which reflect the important features of
  the concept designated)

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Borrowings and word formation

• Terms borrowed from General English
• (metaphorical memory for computer storage
  capacity)
• From Greek and Latin (apparatus, matrix,
  phenomenon)
• Morphological elements
• Prefixes (anti- in- mis- non- semi- un-)
• Suffixes (-ar -al -er -less -ment -ness)
• Back formations (to lase lt laser)
• Clippings (lab ltlaboratory)
• Abbreviations (FBR Fast breeder reactor)
• Acronyms (Laser light amplification by
  stimulated emission of radiation)
• Blends (pulsar pulsating radio star)
• Composite forms (aeroplane)

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Types of message

• Memo characterised as demanding a response of
  some sort
• Administrative (minutes, business letters,
  invoices, contracts)
• Journalistic (ads)
• Reports records of acts or processes produced
  at someones request
• Schedules to order and classify material
• Essays in the form of dissertation, journal
  articles and university theses

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Text forms

• Announcement
• Article
• Bibliography
• Book review
• Review
• Blurb
• Brochure
• Bulletin
• reports

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Text models

• EST texts are relatively strongly formalised.
  Journal articles normally have the following five
  divisions
• An introduction
• A review section
• A methods part
• A results section
• A discussion part

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Scientific presentations

• about scientific presentations and a great idea
  of doing a Poster Session. I'm going to be
  teaching Nuclear Engineering students starting 9
  Oct (help!) and I have been mulling over an idea
  for my approximately 30 students in two groups
  meeting for 3 hours every other week. How's that
  for complicated to begin with? Based on personal
  experience at professional conferences in the
  nuclear engineering field I saw the following 4-
  minute presentations, with a MAXIMUM of 3
  transparencies permitted, which summarized the
  findings of the presenters. Following the 10 or
  so 4-minute summaries, the session broke for
  coffe and juice and participants wandered around
  all the posters. The 4-minute presentations were
  introduced by the Chair of the Session (Mr/Ms X
  will speak on "Benchmarks in reactor noise
  studies done at the University of X".) Get this
  a red/yellow/green light was visibile to the
  audience. At 3.5 minutes the yellow light
  blinked at 4.0 minutes the red light came on.
  Most participants managed to say what they wanted
  in 3.5 minutes and used the last 30 seconds to
  say something like I can see my time is nearly
  up, thank you for your attention. I still haven't
  finished my planning, but I am hoping to have 2
  teams in each class Alpha and Beta. Alpha
  organizes the conference/poster session they
  issue a call for papers receive and
  reject/accept abstracts write acceptance or
  rejection letters (cheating a bit - giving any
  rejected applicants a second chance to rewrite as
  I do want everyone to be accepted!) /organize the
  presentation order and run the pre-poster
  session. Beta group gives their 4-minute (or five
  or six-minute) talks and then we break to
  actually go see the posters. The following week,
  Beta runs the show and Alpha team presents. My
  course only runs for 7 weeks with 3-hour sessions
  every other week. 21 hours total ain't much to go
  on and I have to do TOEFL prep as well. Wish me
  luck, folks!