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Popularizing features in English journal editorials
Davide Simone Giannoni *
University of Bergamo, Piazza Rosate 2, 24129 Bergamo, Italy
Abstract
Journal editorials allow readers to select the most deserving contributions in the literature andadopt approaches or procedures endorsed by an authority in the field; they act as gatekeepers to
代写留学生论文the community of practice and at the same time allow editors to connect directly with their readership.
Following a number of studies on the structure and evaluative language of Medical editorials,this article investigates the genre’s popularizing features in two unrelated domains (medicine andapplied linguistics) linked by a common concern for the practitioner as well as the researcher. Whilesome of these features are known to occur also in popular science articles, others are borrowed fromthe contingent repertoire of science or from non-academic registers, resulting in extremely rich,hybridised textualisations. The evidence collected from a corpus of 40 editorials is thus discussedwith Reference to the popularizing pressure placed on editorials and to the needs of ELF readers confrontedwith such texts. Possible avenues for further research are also suggested, in the light of current
literature on intercultural academic discourse. 2007 The American University. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Popularization, meaning the dissemination of scientific findings outside the communitiesthat produce and to a certain extent ‘own’ such knowledge, helps to maintain a vitalrelationship between researchers and the general public. As most scientists rely on public
funding and favourable legislation, regular coverage of their activities in newspapers, popularmagazines, websites and broadcasts contributes to the accountability and transparencyof ongoing research projects. Communicating scientific knowledge to lay audiences
0889-4906/$34.00  2007 The American University. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.esp.2006.12.001
* Tel.: +39 035 20 52 748.
E-mail address: giannoni@unibg.it
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
English for Specific Purposes 27 (2008) 212–232
www.elsevier.com/locate/esp
ENGLISH FOR
SPECIFIC
PURPOSES‘‘the title of an editorial is a sufficient first impression for deciding how stylish the materialis likely to be’’. For Smith (2006) many journals publish ‘articles that are more journalism
than science’ and increasingly resemble popular magazines – a trend confirmed by theremark that polemical expressions in medical JEDs function as ‘entertainment’ (Gross,2000, p. 445). While the more conservative may see these developments as a threat to
the quality of published research, they are often welcomed by publishers as a means toboost circulation and by readers as a pleasant novelty to the often uninspiring, politicallycorrect discourse of academics.
In order to shed light on the range and function of these popularizing features, the presentstudy was conducted on a sample of JEDs published in medical journals and, as a control,in applied linguistics. While the two domains are conceptually unrelated, they share a
concern for practice as well as factual/speculative knowledge and are both likely to targetaudiences with diverse needs and interests. The findings of this analysis will be discussedbearing in mind other linguistic research on English JEDs (Carnet & Magnet,本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。