英语文体学课本11-16.doc

11 The English of Science and Technology 11.1 The Scope of the English of Science and Technology Our age is an age of machines, electronics and computers. With the development of science and technology, scientists and engineers exchange their ideas, discoveries and inventions, collect information and data, interpret concepts and theories, comment on the latest scientific advances and write reports based on experimental procedures, etc. Hence the need for economical, efficient and impersonal ways of expression: the English of science and technology (shortened as EST). EST is a cover term. It includes in its category many fields of discourse: the English of mathematics, the English of physics, the English of chemistry, the English of biology, the English of psychology, the English of linguistics, etc. The list can be extended according to how detailed we wish our investigations to be. But on the whole, the languages of all the scientific fields have such features in common that we can take them all as a single variety of English which comprises two sub-varieties: the English of specialized science and technology (ESST) and the English of common science and technology (ECST). So far as the mode is concerned, scientific English can be spoken: a lecture on science and technology, a talk between people speaking scientifically, a radio or television program on a science or technical subject etc; and it can be written, as scientific and technical writings, journals, academic papers, etc. The personal tenor of this variety can be less formal, as most of the spoken form of EST, or more formal as most of the written form of EST. The functional tenor of EST, however, is informative. In view of the typicalness of this variety, in this book, we shall focus on written ESST and written ECST, and point to the salient features of some spoken forms of EST. 11.2 Sample Texts for analysis For analysis of EST, we have chosen three sample texts: one is an academic thesis about the tre