The present work deals with corpus linguistics and popular science discourse. In particular, it is aimed at analysing, through the query of a corpus that was built ad hoc for this work, the interaction between the scientist and the public in individual and institutional popular science blogs. In order to gather the texts to be included in the corpus, eight blogs were selected: four individual blogs, Neurologica, Skulls in the Stars, Genomics, Medicine and Pseudoscience, and Mountain Beltway, which were chosen because they are the individual expressions of practicing scientists on a variety of science matters, and four institutional blogs, Physics Buzz, Discover, Public Library of Science e Science News, which were selected because they are the voice of official institutions or worldwide known magazines such as Discover, The Public Library of Science, The American Physical Society and Science News. This work is divided into four chapters: the first is devoted to the survey of the existing literature on the topic of science blogs and public understanding of science, first with a focus on the origins, typologies and defining features of the blog, and secondly with an overview on the language of science. Then, the second chapter is centered, instead, on the description of the corpus, its sampling frame and of the different stages involved in the compilation process, and lastly on the account of the tools used for the analysis (concordance lines, frequency lists). Finally, the last two chapters are devoted to the analysis of the data: here, a quantitative and qualitative approach are combined. More specifically, the third chapter focuses on the analysis of the linguistic elements that express stance, i.e. modal verbs, introductory clauses and adverbs. The fourth chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the reader engagement mechanisms, namely personal and possessive pronouns and interrogative clauses.
Il lavoro di tesi in oggetto si colloca negli ambiti della linguistica dei corpora e, contestualmente, del discorso della divulgazione scientifica. Esso si pone lobiettivo di indagare, tramite linterrogazione di un corpus creato appositamente per questo lavoro, linterazione tra scienziato e pubblico nei blog di divulgazione scientifica, sia individuali, che istituzionali. Per la creazione del corpus, sono stati assemblati testi tratti da otto blog: quattro individuali, Neurologica, Skulls in the Stars, Genomics, Medicine and Pseudoscience e Mountain Beltway , ovvero blog scritti da singoli scienziati, ricercatori e professori con affiliazione ufficiale ad ununiversità americana, e quattro blog istituzionali, Physics Buzz, Discover, Public Library of Science e Science News, scelti perché rappresentanti istituzioni ufficiali o riviste di rilevanza internazionale nel settore. Il presente lavoro è organizzato in quattro capitoli: il primo è dedicato alla rassegna della letteratura inerente largomento di studio e si sofferma, in primis, sulle origini del blog, sulle sue caratteristiche specifiche e sulle diverse tipologie esistenti, e, in secundis, sul linguaggio della scienza. Il secondo capitolo è, invece, di carattere metodologico e si focalizza sulla descrizione del corpus creato ad hoc per questa analisi, dei criteri adottati per lestrazione dei dati e sullillustrazione delle fasi seguite nella compilazione del corpus, per giungere, infine, allesposizione degli strumenti utilizzati per la sua interrogazione (concordanze, liste di frequenze). Gli ultimi due capitoli, infine, sono incentrati sullesame dei dati ottenuti dalla combinazione dellanalisi di carattere quantitativo, con quella di carattere qualitativo. Il terzo capitolo, in particolare, si focalizza sulla comparazione dei dati relativi alle strutture linguistiche esprimenti la stance, ovvero i verbi modali, le frasi e gli avverbi. Il quarto capitolo, invece, è dedicato allanalisi dei device linguistici che rendono il reader engagement, ovvero lutilizzo di pronomi personali e possessivi e di frasi interrogative.
Blurring the boundaries between popular and academic communication: a corpus study of interaction in science blogs
GIORDANO, ILARIA
2018/2019
Abstract
The present work deals with corpus linguistics and popular science discourse. In particular, it is aimed at analysing, through the query of a corpus that was built ad hoc for this work, the interaction between the scientist and the public in individual and institutional popular science blogs. In order to gather the texts to be included in the corpus, eight blogs were selected: four individual blogs, Neurologica, Skulls in the Stars, Genomics, Medicine and Pseudoscience, and Mountain Beltway, which were chosen because they are the individual expressions of practicing scientists on a variety of science matters, and four institutional blogs, Physics Buzz, Discover, Public Library of Science e Science News, which were selected because they are the voice of official institutions or worldwide known magazines such as Discover, The Public Library of Science, The American Physical Society and Science News. This work is divided into four chapters: the first is devoted to the survey of the existing literature on the topic of science blogs and public understanding of science, first with a focus on the origins, typologies and defining features of the blog, and secondly with an overview on the language of science. Then, the second chapter is centered, instead, on the description of the corpus, its sampling frame and of the different stages involved in the compilation process, and lastly on the account of the tools used for the analysis (concordance lines, frequency lists). Finally, the last two chapters are devoted to the analysis of the data: here, a quantitative and qualitative approach are combined. More specifically, the third chapter focuses on the analysis of the linguistic elements that express stance, i.e. modal verbs, introductory clauses and adverbs. The fourth chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the reader engagement mechanisms, namely personal and possessive pronouns and interrogative clauses.È consentito all'utente scaricare e condividere i documenti disponibili a testo pieno in UNITESI UNIPV nel rispetto della licenza Creative Commons del tipo CC BY NC ND.
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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14239/5758