Unit 2. The scientific prose style.

The scientific prose style has three subdivisions: I) the style of humanitarian sciences, 2) the style of "exact" sciences, 3) the style of popular scientific prose.

The function of the scientific prose style is to work out and ground theoretically objective knowledge about reality. It strives towards the most general objective and impersonal conception.

Some of the salient features of scientific English should be underlined: such as logical sequences, lucidity, exactness, impersonality. It also has certain distinct characteristics with regard to vocabulary, syntax and morphology. Science is concer­ned with matter, elements, substances, objects, solids, liquids, gases. Such words are in everyday use, though they are also fundamental to scientific vocabulary. Other words are more likely to occur only in a scientific context and they are usually derived from Greek (oxygen, hydrogen), Latin (carbon, molecule), Arabic (alkali).They are called terms and vary depending on the kind of science. (Note: the word science itself is derived from the Latin scire, to know, to have knowledge of, to experience. The word scientist was introduced only in 1840 by William Whewell, Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge-Before that the scientists were known as “natural philosophers ").

The above mentioned strictly scientific terms are described as "general scientific vocabu­lary ", - words most naturally used to impart intellectual information irrespective of whether the information is strictly scientific and pertains to exact or natural sciences or humanities. They are such words as' adhere, assume, assumption, postulate, predetermine, experiment, observation, perceive, ascribe, distinction etc. As one can see these are the words which denote general and abstract notions, but even con­crete words in scientific English denote something abstract and general:

e.g. "The chemist must pay attention to..." Here not a particular but any chemist is meant.

The general and impersonal character of this kind of English is emphasized by a wide use of impersonal sentences and passive constructions. From the point of view of its style scientific English is a statement rather than an emotive expression through imaginative figures of speech. Sometimes scientists resort to metaphors to make an imagi­native or emotional appeal. But if in the belles-lettres style it is one of the means of creating images, a part of its system, in scientific English it is used for explanation, concretization, popularization, it is an inplay, not connected with the general langu­age system of the style. Unlike the belles-letters style it is never original, individual but it is always contextually bound and devoid of individuality and originality.

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