The Bridge Between the World and Cognition Essay Example

The Bridge Between the World and Cognition Essay Introduction Language represents humans experiences and different fields hold different ways of language using. The language of science actively constructs scientific reality, I. E. A way of looking at the world, the roles assigned to readers and the way of organizing Information (LINKING-molestation). However, science may be presented diversely according to the different intended audience, purposes and modes. Three texts chosen in this paper are all concerned with the same scientific reality, but their language differs widely. The ways in which science are presented in this three texts argyle depends on their audience, purposes and modes. To put it another way, language of science in the chosen texts changes with changes in audience, purpose and mode. The focus of the present paper Is on how the language of science changes with different audience, purposes and modes from the perspectives of genre, technical language, lexical density, nominal groups and molestation, information organization, writer-reader relationship and the use of visuals. The first section of this paper is a brief introduction of the background and purpose. Part two, the most important one, extensively focuses on the detailed analysis of language changes of science. Then the concluding section sums up the main ideas. 2. Analysis and comment 2. 1 Genre Swales (1990) indicates that genres are a class of communicative events linked by some set of communicative purposes shared by members of a particular community; these purposes are the rationale of the genre and help to shape the ways it is organized and the choices of content and style It makes (LINKING-Genre). We will write a custom essay sample on The Bridge Between the World and Cognition specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Bridge Between the World and Cognition specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Bridge Between the World and Cognition specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer It can be seen that the communicative purpose of a genre Is realized by highly organized move truce, which In turn Is achieved by rhetorical strategies. Text 1, taken from New Scientist, is a very popular international science magazine aiming at reporting the latest scientific development to the public. As a non-peer- reviewed magazine, the main readers of which are non-scientists. To achieve its communicative purposes, this text moves from the European hunter-gatherer was a blue-eyed boy? to by-line (source and the writer), then to introduction (theme of the whole text), and lastly comes the main body. In the body part, the main idea of An ancient hunter-gather has a genome similar to modern unmans is expanded by presenting more details with two subheadings: Farming genes and Healthy genomes. Whats more, exemplifications and explanations are made full use to illustrate this scientific finding. All In all, as far as the genre is the-minute news from BBC website. BBC News provides the politically impartial news for people around the world, thus the target audience are the public who are interested in the world news or learning English. This text is organized by heading, by-line, and two subheadings. As for the content and style, it repeats the scientific experiment with objective data and experts words. All these features go to the field of pedagogic science. Text 3 is an article published in the Journal Nature, a highly respected scientific Journal in that all the articles are peer-reviewed and maintain high research standards. Accordingly, the primary readers for this Journal are research scientists. This text is much longer and complex with lots of data, tales and figures, which give hints of professional science. To present the process of research, this text follows the formal structure of a research article: introduction, methods, exults and discussion (LINKING-Genre). 2. 2 Technical language Technical language is a typical characteristic of scientific articles. Ways to create technical language include taxonomies, definitions, compositions, naming and so on (LINKING-molestation). By employing the technical language, information can be greatly compacted and restructured. Due to the scientific nature of the three texts, any of them adopt the skill of technical language, but in different degrees. The target readers of Text 1 are the popular audience and it only reports the results of the research rather than doing experiments. So, it uses less technical language. Throughout the whole text, it can be found only one technical language used for definition in paragraph 5: For instance, lactose tolerance the ability to drink milk as an adult probably evolved when farming spread. Text 2, purposed to teach science, utilizes no typical means of creating technical language that mentioned above, but it has many proper names. For example, La Bran 1 and 2 in paragraph 6, UP radiation and vitamin D in paragraph 11 and lactose-intolerant and starch in paragraph 14. Text 3, the professional one, owns the most technical language to ensure its objectivity, authenticity and validity. At the first glance of this text, the technical language with the way of composition can be found: Next-generation sequencing (INS) technologies are revolutionized the field of ancient DNA (DNA), and have enabled the sequencing of complete ancient genomes, such as that of  ¶ditz, a Neolithic human body found in the Alps. Whats more, taking paragraph 5 (a very short one) as an example, there are altogether five proper names, namely, LA Bran genome, allele, lactose intolerance, salivary amylase and starch. 2. Lexical density Vocabulary is a basic feature of language and lexical density is closely related to the choice of vocabulary. Lexical density is a measure of the density of information in any passage of text and it is determined by calculating the ratio between the number of clauses in a text and the number of content words in a clause (LINKING- molestation). The high lexical density of a text gives a sense of being more formal, written and academic, whereas it is felt more spoken and As for the three texts in this paper, they are popular, pedagogic and professional science respectively. Lexical density, therefore, must be very different from one another. The titles of each text present their lexical density. After the lexical items in each headline being underlined, the three titles are presented as Ancient European hunter-gatherer was a blue-eyed boy, Hunter-gatherer European had blue eyes and dark skin and Derived immune and ancestral pigmentation alleles in a 7 000-year- old Megalithic European. The title of text 3 possesses the most contents words followed by the title of text 2 and that of text 1 has the least. When looking closely at he three texts, the feature of lexical density become clearer, that is, the lexical density is increasing form text 1, to text 2, then to text. 2. 4 Nominal groups and normalization Both nominal groups and normalization can make it come true that short space contain more information. A nominal group consists of a head noun and various elements placed before and after it which modify its meaning; while molestation is the process by which events, qualities and relationships come to be represented as things and nouns (LINKING-molestation). Here the first sentence of each text is hoses to illustrate the nominal groups and normalization in popular science, pedagogic science and professional science. Text 1: An ancient hunter-gatherer whose remains were found in a Spanish cave has a genome surprisingly similar to modern humans. Text 2: Genetic tests reveal that a hunter-gatherer who lived 7,000 years ago had the unusual combination of dark skin and hair and blue eyes. Text 3: Ancient genomic sequences have started to reveal the origin and the demographic impact of farmers from the Neolithic period spreading into Europe. The above examples show that the nominal groups (underlined parts) in text 3 is anger than those in text 2, which in turn are longer than in text 1. As the nominal groups get longer, more information is packed into the sentence. Hunter-gatherer in the first and second sentence and sequence in the third sentence are examples of normalization. 2. 5 Information organization Based on the different audience and communicative purposes, information organization in popular science differs widely from professional science. Popular science writers focus on the thing being studied rather than the methods used and they do not assume high degree of common knowledge; contrarily, professional scientists focus on the methods by which data was analyzed and assume that reader and writer share specialized knowledge (LINKING- Organizing information). As far as genres of the three texts are considered, information given in them is different, which determines the different ways of information organization. At the beginning of text 1, the main idea/macro-theme is given, which followed by genome surprisingly similar to modern humans. Lexical chains like but and for instance are utilized to enhance its cohesion. Same with the text 1, text 2 starts with the macro-theme and then gives some illustrations. Semantic relations are created by a set of cohesive devices, such as conjunctions (and/as), reference (they/it) and lexical cohesion (genetic/gene/genome). Text 3, as the professional science, keeps the formal information organization of a research article. Firstly, it shows us the macro- theme, and then gives the detailed process of data collection and analysis with hyper-themes. With more nominal groups, normalization, technical language and lexical chains, text 3 possesses a more cohesive argument. Take the first paragraph as an example: Next-generation sequencing (NAGS) technologies are revolutionized he field of ancient DNA (DNA), and have enabled the sequencing of complete ancient genomes, such as that of  ¶ditz, a Neolithic human body found in the Alps. However, very little is known of the genetic composition of earlier hunter-gatherer populations from the Megalithic period. 2. Relationship between writer and readers Writer-reader relationship plays a vital importance in the language of science. The target readers often determine the writing purpose and mode, through which forms the language style. The first text, titled Ancient European hunter-gatherer was a blue-eyed boy, is taken room New Scientist, which intends to report the latest scientific development to the public audience. This kind of relationship between writer and reader lead to the lang uage being popular and easy to understand. Text 2? Hunter-gatherer European had blue eyes and dark skin? is a piece of BBC news that present impartial news for worldwide people. As the news is reported by the announcer, the language of it couldnt be so complex that impede comprehension. Titled as Derived immune and ancestral pigmentation alleles in a 7 000-year-old Megalithic European, text 3 is an article chosen from the highly respected Journal Nature. Owing to the fact that the main readers of this Journal are research scientists, the language of it must be very objective, authentic and evidence-oriented. 2. Use of visuals Using proper visuals can not only enhance the reliability and validity of the scientific language, but also nicely draw the readers attention. All the three texts adopt the skills of visuals, like pictures, hyper links, underlined words, etc. However, it still has some differences between the three texts. For instance, the colorful picture of the lee-eyed boy appears in both the first and second text, bu t not in the third one. This colorful picture does well in arousing readers interests, which is very helpful to achieve the texts communicative purposes. Besides, some words in text 1 are typed in different color and text 2 includes marked sentence that extracted from other text. Compared with the first two, the third text uses more figures and tables, which greatly present the data analysis and shows the professional nature of this text. 3. Conclusion From what has been discussed above, weve got to know that the language of science hoses three texts in the light of genre, technical language, lexical density, nominal groups and molestation, information organization, writer-reader relationship and the use of visuals. In general, text 1, aims at reporting the scientific development to the common people, belongs to the popular science with less technical language, nominal groups and mollification, and low lexical density; text 2, purposed to provide the politically impartial news for people around the world, falls into the field of pedagogic science, which has more technical language, nominal groups and implantation, and higher lexical density than text 1; text, being the professional science, aims to present the experiment to research scientists and possess the most technical language, nominal groups and mollification, and the highest lexical density.