Scientific style is a style of speech used in the field of science and education. Its main features are the following: generalization and abstraction, terminology, emphasized logic. Secondary traits: unambiguity, semantic accuracy, standard, objectivity, brevity, rigor, clarity, non-categorical, impersonality, imagery, appraisal, etc.
There are three sub styles: the scientific style of the text (articles, monographs, dissertations, scientific reports, speeches at scientific conferences, disputes), scientific and educational (lectures, textbooks), popular science (articles, popular science reports, essays).
Scientific style: its main characteristics
Academician D. Likhachev in his works indicated:
1. The requirements for scientific style are significantly different from the requirements for the language of fiction.
2. The use of metaphors and various images in the language of scientific work is permissible only if it is necessary to put a logical emphasis on a specific thought. In a scientific style, imagery is only a pedagogical device necessary to draw attention to the main idea of the work.
3. A really good scientific style language should not be seen by the reader. He should notice only thought, and not the language by which the thought is expressed.
4. The main advantage of a scientific language is clarity.
5. Other advantages of the scientific style are brevity, lightness, simplicity.
6. The scientific style involves the minimal use of subordinate clauses in scientific works. The phrases should be short, the transition from one sentence to another - natural and logical, “unnoticed”.
7. Avoid frequent use of pronouns that make you think that they are replaced, what they relate to.
8. No need to be afraid of repetitions, try to get rid of them mechanically. One and the same concept should be denoted by the same term; one cannot replace it with a synonym. Only repetitions that come from the poverty of the writer’s language should be avoided.
9. Parasitic words that do not add anything to thought should be avoided. However, an important idea should be disclosed in more detail, with some stop on it.
10. Scientific style calls for special attention to the quality of words. It is better to use the word “opposite” instead of “vice versa”, “difference” instead of “difference”.
Scientific Style Texts: Characterization of Language Tools
- book words with abstract (abstract) and generalized meaning (reflection, thinking, weightlessness, mutability);
- general scientific vocabulary (process, quantity, quality, component, reason);
- words-terms - a set of names combined in the terminological system of a particular science (plankton, phoneme, congruence, reflection);
- specific combinations of words (boiling point, demographic crisis, pancreas, compound sentence) ;
- high frequency of adjectives (about 13%), prepositions, conjunctions, prepositional combinations (for reason, with the help, on the basis of, in comparison with ..., in relation, in connection with ... and others);
- complex sentences (especially complex ones);
- sentences with introductory words, participles and participles.
Scientific style should be familiar to everyone.