Table Of ContentScientifi c Discourse and the
Rhetoric of Globalization
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Also available from Continuum
Academic Writing , Diane Pecorari, Susan Hunston and Maggie Charles
Academic Writing and Genre , Ian Bruce
Scientifi c Discourse , David Ian Hanauer
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Scientifi c Discourse and the
Rhetoric of Globalization
The Impact of Culture and Language
Carmen Pérez-Llantada
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Continuum International Publishing Group
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© Carmen Pérez-Llantada 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permis-
sion in writing from the publishers.
Author has asserted his/her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
E ISBN: 978-1-4411-5983-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pérez-Llantada, Carmen.
Scientifi c discourse and the rhetoric of globalization: the impact of culture and
language / Carmen Pérez-Llantada.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4411-8872-4 (alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4411-5983-0 (ebook pdf : alk.
paper) – ISBN 978-1-4411-8738-3 (ebook epub : alk. paper) 1. Science–Philosophy.
2. Reason. 3. Rhetoric. I. Title.
Q175.P47 2012
501’.4–dc23
2011046616
T ypeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain
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In memoriam
To those who believed that science and religion are not
in contradiction and that both are fundamental to life’s
understanding.
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Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Chapter 1. The Role of Science Rhetoric in the Global Village 1
Chapter 2. Scientifi c English in the Postmodern Age 16
Chapter 3. Problematizing the Rhetoric of Contemporary Science 47
Chapter 4. A Contrastive Rhetoric Approach to Science
Dissemination 72
Chapter 5. Disciplinary Practices and Procedures Within
Research Sites 105
Chapter 6. Triangulating Procedures, Practices and Texts in
Scientifi c Discourse 136
Chapter 7. ELF and a More Complex Sociolinguistic Landscape 162
Chapter 8. Re-Defi ning the Rhetoric of Science 190
References 213
Index 237
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Acknowledgements
This book is the result of a long but rewarding journey into the scientifi c and
research world as perceived through the lens of English linguistics. It is also
the outcome of a rich exchange of scholarly views with a number of individu-
als. First and foremost, my gratefulness to Professor John M. Swales (University
of Michigan) for his invaluable and generous support. His academic supervi-
sion for almost a decade and his bird-watching trips to the Washtenaw coun-
tryside have indeed strengthened my critical eye for analysing texts and their
surrounding contexts. This volume intends to be a humble contribution to his
rich legacy in genre analysis and LSP.
The book also owes much to Professor Gibson R. Ferguson (University of
Sheffi eld, UK). He initiated me in the fi elds of applied linguistics and corpus
methods and recently embarked me in international research cooperation for
examining the role of English in today’s research world. Thought-provoking
scholarly exchange within the preliminary stages of the Leverhulme Trust net-
work led by Professor Andrew Linn (University of Sheffi eld, UK) yielded my
fi rst thoughts and refl ections on the relationship between English and other
languages. This volume includes those thoughts and refl ections.
I am most grateful to all the scholars from the University of Zaragoza and
the University of Michigan who showed willingness to participate in the eth-
nographic work reported in this volume. They generously shared their experi-
ences, practices and perceptions on the academic world and, more importantly,
gave ample credence of the fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration within
academia.
I owe a debt of gratitude to my colleagues Julian Chancellor, Ramón Plo and
Ana Bocanegra, who took care of the tedious task of revising and proofread-
ing the book while also checking for inconsistencies and contradictions and
providing precious feedback. My special thanks to Moisés Escudero, for his
interest and invaluable help in validating my corpus-based quantitative data
and my analytical observations with reliable statistical signifi cance tools.
I should also express my gratitude to the English Language Institute of the
University of Michigan for granting me a Morley Scholarship in 2003, and
giving me the opportunity to conduct this research as a visiting scholar for
the past seven years. I am also indebted to the Spanish Ministry of Education
(under research projects HUM2005-03646 and FFI2009-09792), the University
of Zaragoza (Vicerrectorate of Research) and the InterLAE research group
led by Professor Ignacio Vázquez at the University of Zaragoza (Spain), for the
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Acknowledgements ix
fi nancial support that I received from them for those stays. I very much hope
this volume represents a mature research contribution to those projects.
On a more personal level, my thanks to my beloved father and mother,
strong infl uential models of fortitude and compliance to duties at work. I also
owe them my love for learning foreign languages and my endless scientifi c
curiosity and interest in intellectual enquiry. Finally, I owe much to my three
‘big boys’. Their uncritical but always supportive and loving presence in the
drafting process of this volume during our summer spells at the United States
has always been most rewarding and fruitful.
For the behind the scenes work, I would like to thank Continuum Publishers,
especially Gurdeep Mattu, Colleen Coalter, Laura Murray and Srikanth for
their kindness and support throughout the publication process of this volume.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following organizations, and
individuals for permission to reprint materials and fi gures: the World Bank
Organization, Science Quest International and Professor Vijay Bhatia
(University of Hong Kong).
Zaragoza, 12 October 2011.
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