Semi-Academic Sources Inwards Eap: An Interview Amongst A Novel Scientist Journalist (2)

Part two: Language & vocabulary

My concluding post featured the commencement percentage of an interview alongside Dr Alison George, an editor for New Scientist magazine. She talked virtually how scientific papers are restructured together with presented inward a to a greater extent than appealing way for the to a greater extent than general, New Scientist readership. In this post, she talks virtually how the actual linguistic communication used is different.

Dr Alison George: “A journalist volition seek to avoid the "jargon heavy" linguistic communication used inward scientific papers together with adopt a simpler approach to conveying information.  A instance inward dot is my PhD thesis, for which I gave the title:  "The biodegradation of anionic surfactants inward the estuarine environment".  In hindsight, I realise that I went out of my way to utilization long words to teach inward audio serious.  This is typical of scientific papers. However, if I was explaining my thesis to a friend, I'd tell that my enquiry was virtually whether the chemicals found inward shampoos together with detergents are biodegradable.” 

I enquire whether the utilization of long words inward academic papers is truly simply virtually ‘sounding serious’ together with on reflection, Alison admits, that isn’t ever strictly true. “For example, to utilization "detergents" instead of "anionic surfactants" would withdraw maintain made it easier to sympathize for the lay person, but is technically inaccurate.”

Vocabulary differences: a specific case

To farther illustrate her dot virtually linguistic communication differences, Alison gave me an representative of an article she’d written for New Scientist virtually penguins together with for comparison, the 2 academic papers on which it was based. 

She picks out a twain of phrases that were reworded to brand them to a greater extent than accessible. “The first paper used the words "synoptic survey" inward the opening judgement together with title . The words "synoptic survey" would non live used inward New Scientist, instead nosotros powerfulness say, "a survey of the entire coastline of Antarctica using satellite images".  

The second paper uses price such equally "analysis of coupled demographic together with climate models ". Again, nosotros would avoid using this term inward New Scientist because it's difficult to piece of work out what it means. Instead, nosotros powerfulness tell something like: "predictions of time to come numbers of Emperor penguins based on forecasts of the Antarctic climate".  

The bottom employment is this: although a scientific enquiry newspaper together with an article inward New Scientist powerfulness tackle the same topic, together with both powerfulness bargain alongside to a greater extent than or less tricky concepts, the trend they are written inward is different. In New Scientist, nosotros brand strenuous efforts to interpret technical terminology together with jargon into words that an educated reader, without whatever specialist cognition of the subject, should understand.”

Lost vocabulary:

What just constitutes ‘technical terminology’ though? The 2 examples to a higher house are clearly really specialist together with arguably non really useful for the average EAP educatee to pass fourth dimension on, but what virtually the residual of the language? If nosotros compare the New Scientist article alongside the commencement of the academic articles inward price of overall vocabulary, nosotros come across whatever interesting difference:

	New Scientist article	Original scientific paper
Top 2000 most frequent words	83%	74.5%
AWL* words	5%	14.5%
Other words	12%	11%

* Academic Word List

These stats are really broad-brush, but they create demo that equally good equally cutting the most specialist terminology, the New Scientist article too loses a lot of the full general academic vocabulary (here based on the AWL), which is in all probability just what EAP students do need. Just to a greater extent than or less of the vocabulary that gets lost inward the edit hither includes words like: assess, consistent, distribution, establish, evidence, factor, function, indicate, occur, variation; all recognizably useful pith academic words.

If together with so many EAP materials focus on pedagogy this pith academic vocabulary, it seems somewhat counterproductive to live using texts that quite consciously characteristic significantly less of it.

Idiom together with hyperbole:

So what is it that replaces the academic vocabulary inward the New Scientist article? Well, it does comprise a higher proportion of high frequency words, which should teach inward to a greater extent than accessible to the average non-native speaker student. This is proficient news, of course, if you’re looking for input for a speaking lesson, say. However, at that spot are a twain of linguistics features which could piece of work against its usefulness inward an EAP context.

Because New Scientist articles are essentially targeted at a native speaker readership, they depict on idiomatic linguistic communication together with cultural references to appeal to that audience. Take these 2 brusk extracts:

“Fast-forward a few decades, together with many colonies volition live on the route to extinction. Are nosotros witnessing the concluding march of the emperor penguins?” (> tricky idioms inward ‘fast-forward a few decades’ together with ‘on the route to extinction’, summation the cultural reference to the documentary cinema ‘March of the Penguins’, which gets to a greater extent than or less other advert afterward inward the piece)

“This extraordinary lifestyle has made the emperors famous. They withdraw maintain fifty-fifty been held upward equally role models past times evangelical Christians.” (> again, the cultural reference hither powerfulness withdraw maintain quite a fleck of explaining to students from to a greater extent than or less backgrounds!)

These type of issues powerfulness live a fun distraction inward a General English linguistic communication class, but are they truly an effective utilization of aeroplane fourth dimension for students preparing for academic study? Again, I jurist that’s downwardly to context together with the amount of aeroplane fourth dimension available, equally good equally the interests together with priorities of your students.

Perhaps of to a greater extent than concern, I think, for students trying to teach to grips alongside an academic trend of writing is the type of linguistic communication used to hand the even out to a greater extent than deport upon for a full general audience. The New Scientist article is littered alongside words similar impossible, blockbuster, breath-taking, catastrophic, disastrous, extraordinary, demise together with vanish.  This is just the type of linguistic communication that academic writers are careful to avoid, unless it’s really carefully hedged (with seemingly, apparently, potentially, etc.) It comes dorsum to the dot Alison made to a higher house virtually the request to live completely accurate inward academic writing. As EAP tutors, nosotros warn our students to avoid exaggeration together with overgeneralization inward their writing, because nosotros tin foresee the comments which volition come upward dorsum from their dependent tutors.

This raises the query of whether it’s truly misleading to introduce this type of text to students equally an representative of academic writing. How volition they know simply what’s appropriate to utilization inward their ain writing together with what’s not? Yes, nosotros tin brand advert of the differences, nosotros tin create a fleck of genre analysis even, but volition students live able to brand all those distinctions for themselves, volition they realize simply what’s transferrable together with what isn’t?

So having looked inward a fleck to a greater extent than exceptional at the genre, is it helpful to utilization articles from consumer magazines aimed at a full general readership inward an EAP context?  As Swales (2016) puts it: “Genres are defined inward price of their communicative purposes” together with from what we’ve seen, the communicative purposes of these articles versus the form of academic texts that students volition request to read equally percentage of their studies are clearly non the same. So, i time again, I think, it comes dorsum to the aims of the lesson; these articles are clearly to a greater extent than fun together with engaging than most academic texts together with because they’re aimed at a non-specialist audience, they’re to a greater extent than suited to a mixed-discipline EAP class. However, if the aim is to gear upward students for the type of reading texts together with linguistic communication they’re going to request for their time to come studies, non solely are these articles unhelpful, but they could truly seek a hindrance.

With special thank you lot to Alison George for taking the fourth dimension to respond my questions, for existence together with so enthusiastic virtually the topic together with for providing to a greater extent than or less fascinating insights into the workings of New Scientist.

References:

Fretwell PT, LaRue MA, Morin P, Kooyman GL, Wienecke B, Ratcliffe N, et al. (2012) An Emperor Penguin Population Estimate: The First Global, Synoptic Survey of a Species from Space. PLoS ONE 7(4): e33751. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033751

George Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 (2012) The concluding march of the emperor penguins. New Scientist

Jenouvrier S, Kingdom of the Netherlands M, Stroeve J, Barbraud J, Weimerskirch H, Caswell H (2012) Effects of climate alter on an emperor penguin population: analysis of coupled demographic together with climate model. Global Change Biology xviii (9), p.2756-2770
Swales J (2016) Genre & English linguistic communication for Academic Purposes video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W--C4AzvwiU&feature=youtu.be
 

Tweet

Subscribe to receive free email updates: