Connectors

- conjunctions ‘thus, however, therefore’ /also ‘furthermore, nevertheless, consequently, etc.’/

- phrases /‘in fact, in short, in general, in this way, in other words, as we have just seen’/

- subordinating conjunctions, referential pronouns, demonstrative pronouns /hierarchy/

Modals /must, should, ought, can, may, might/

- little semantic meaning, esp. when followed by verbs ‘to note, notice, remark, observe, mention’

- expression of objective propositional modality /‘it might be remarked that…’/

- ‘should’ preferred to ‘must’ /‘safety precautions should be observed at all times’/

- the verb ‘would’ for repeated action /‘the instrument would give readings every ten minutes’/

- the verbs ‘will, to be, to let’ will little semantic and more modal meaning /‘it is also to be noted that…; it will be noticed that…; let it be mentioned that…’/

- the verbs ‘to seem, to appear’ for understatement for the sake of objectivity

Lexical Features

- most frequent word categories: nouns and adjectives

- terminology = words with clearly defined fixed meaning in a particular scientific discipline

- half-terms shared by all sciences /‘process, effect, feature; to function, operate, modify’/

- bookish words /‘negligible, obviate, propagate’/

- proper names, numbers, figures

- neutral expressions

- no words outside the standard language variety; no dialect, no slang

- no emotional words, no interjections, no phraseology

x but: some terms emotional for the sake of expressing their motivation /‘dead space; conductor alive; soft-landing; splash-down; hardware; Big Bang’/

x AmE: emotional words, colloquial words, similes esp. in titles /‘saving lasers from suicide; the laser goes to the office’/

Special Nomenclature

- scientific terminology: hepatitis, hypnosis, arthritic disorders, virus, millimetre; impressionism, rotunda, mezzo soprano; dolomite prairies, gravely soils, limestone, sea level; Milky Way, black hole; Velvet Revolution

Popular Scientific Style

Relations to Other Styles

- influenced by the colloquial style

- shares some features with the publicistic style

- also shares some features with the colloquial style

Functions

- provides information

- informs about latest developments in various scientific fields

- presents even complicated topics in an interesting way

- popularises the scientific style

- addresses general public

General Characteristics

- scientific style x popular scientific style

- more graphics

- more descriptive