Scientific vs. Humanistic Discourse: Key Features, Structure and Linguistic Traits

Scientific Discourse: Characteristics and Principles

Scientific Technical Speech
The goal of scientific study is to understand the physical reality and its properties, with the aim of practical application.

Characteristics

• Its production takes place within the scope of cultural transmission of knowledge.
• Its information is verifiable and physical.
• It uses technicisms; the text may be aimed at an expert recipient in the branch or an interested reader.
• Its structure presents a clear logic and precise clarity.

Principles of Scientific Discourse

• Objectivity: Content must be based on data, experiments and observations. Contrasting opinions or expressions of feelings are not included. Information must always be verifiable.
• Universality: Contents have universal validity and are standardized to facilitate comprehension across countries and in any language, and remain verifiable.
• Precision and clarity: The text seeks to eliminate or clarify possible ambiguities in all elements that may involve difficulty, using graphics, examples, etc.

Genres

Written genres: articles in specialized journals, theses, manuals, reports.
Oral genres: speeches, communications, educational exhibitions.
Tests may also address scientific-technical questions with an informative intention and a linguistic treatment. Journalistic genres with scientific characteristics are present in informative scientific texts aimed at a broad audience.

Structure

• Introduction: Presents the topic of the thesis and the approach that will be developed in the text.
• Body: Development of arguments and explanations.
• Conclusion: Summarizes the information presented and the thesis defended.

Information may be organized in the following ways:

• Synthetic or inductive: Starts from concrete facts and particulars, moving toward the general, ending with the most important information.
• Analytical or deductive: The main information is presented first, then analyzed and developed.
• Framed: Combines the previous two, presenting the fundamental information at the beginning and end, and rephrasing it in the text.
• Parallel: The first series presents its relevance without being subordinate to another.

Linguistic Features

Textual Pragmatic Level

• Coherence: All statements are subordinated to the central theme and the progression of information. To understand a new statement, it is necessary to have understood the previous one.
• Cohesion: A characteristic of scientific texts is the repetition of the same words, as a cohesive mechanism, instead of synonyms or pronoun substitution.
• Discourse markers: Connectors that express the relationships between ideas and information (cause, consequence, contrast, addition), structurers that help organize the text (conclusion, introduction), and discursive operators that reinforce the issuer's attitude and argumentation are frequent in informative texts.
• Intertextuality (presence of other texts) is very frequent, with the intention of relating and verifying the objectivity of these texts.

Morphosyntactic Level

To reinforce objectivity:

• The indicative mood predominates, in the present (timeless or habitual) and the future; the conditional is also used to express hypotheses.
• Use of the third-person singular and the first-person plural (modesty or generalization).
• Impersonal se constructions and passive reflexives. For the same purpose, subordinate clauses with infinitive, participle and gerund are used; the subjunctive is used with verbs of non-personal meaning.
• Nominal constructions with abstract nouns.

To reinforce clarity:

• Specifying adjectives, adjectival clauses and appositions, which complete and complement the information.
• Juxtaposition and coordination.
• Sentential clauses and attributive clauses, which define and explain objects and phenomena.

Lexical-Semantic Level

Scientific technical language is characterized by its lexicon and semantics. Each discipline uses its own subcode of technicisms, that is, its own words or techniques, with a single precise meaning for each concept.

Continuous scientific and technological advances, and the constant revision of their own methods and concepts, cause the permanent creation of terms that join the specific terminology of each discipline.

The creation of terms follows various procedures:

• Language's own mechanisms: suffixation, prefixation, composition, or phrase formation.
• Terms built from compositional elements of Latin and Greek, very present in the generation of technicisms.
• Loanwords from modern languages, above all French and English.
• Acronyms and eponyms: words derived from the name of the inventor or discoverer, or from the country of origin.
• Common use of words that acquire a precise meaning in a given discipline.

Also notable are the following semantic phenomena in scientific terminology:

• Use of synonyms and hyponyms.
• Use of metaphors and personifications.

Humanistic Discourse: Characteristics and Principles

Humanistic Speech

Humanistic discourse features are related to the object of its study, focused on human beings and their social and personal nature, and their historical and cultural manifestations. Its boundaries with scientific texts are not sharp, since both share the purpose of knowledge transmission.

Characteristics

• It deals with topics related to the human being, analyzing their nature, culture and their social or individual dimension.
• Its production takes place within the scope of cultural transmission of knowledge, through different media and genres with a strong formative intention.
• It is documented with quotes and data, and also proposes opinions based on the author's reflections; these texts tend to be speculative and debatable.
• It uses technicisms of its own discipline, whose meanings are variable or preferably significant, with a tendency toward connotation and abstraction.

Principles of Humanistic Discourse

Humanistic discourse uses alternative methods of analysis, based on logical reasoning and theoretical reflection, rather than purely empirical methods.

• Subjectivity: Contents may include opinions through the appeal to the authority of experts, the modalization of the text, and the author's own inscription in the speech, abounding in allusions to the recipient.
• Abstraction: Concepts replace physical realities in the object of study. Humanistic texts form conceptions of ideologies, with variability and different terminologies.
• Doctrinal character: Humanistic texts are open to revision, are continuously reviewed, and do not prevent the establishment of positions that can give rise to controversy or ideological currents of thought.
• Rigor and style: Precision and clarity are fundamental values to avoid ambiguity and facilitate correct interpretation of the text, but the subjectivity of texts allows certain freedom aimed at both the recipient's appeal and careful literary intention.

Genres

Oral genres: speeches or presentations, communications, educational exhibitions.
Written genres: articles in specialized journals, dissemination articles or daily press.
Literary genre: the essay, in which the author shares experiences, plants their opinions and addresses various matters. The essay accompanies argumentative rigor without being exhaustive, and is usually addressed to non-specialized readers. Its themes are varied, and authors may adopt a serious, ironic, satirical or humorous tone. Its length is also variable.

Argumentative Structure

• Argumentum ad hominem: the value of an argument depends on who presents it.
• Affective: seeks to move through sentiment, alluding to feelings rather than logic.
• Authority: appeals to experts or people of recognized prestige.
• Analogy: defends or refutes something through its similarity with another opinion.
• Quality: values what is good or superior; includes aesthetic valuations.
• Exemplifying: makes the general opinion concrete through several practical cases.
• Existential: values what is authentic, probable, or the unlikely and improbable.
• Personal experience: values what has been lived personally.
• Facts: verifiable, using as evidence the facts on which the opinion is based.
• Moral justice: prioritizes justice over injustice, and the moral over the immoral or amoral.
• Tradition: values the new or the traditional, as argument or counterargument.
• General feeling: argument based on quantity; the greater argument is what the majority or minority feels.

Linguistic Features

Textual Pragmatic Level

• Coherence is achieved through the subordination of all statements to the central theme and the progression of information: to understand a new statement, it is necessary to have understood the previous one.
• Cohesion: a peculiarity of scientific texts is the repetition of the same words as a cohesive mechanism, instead of synonyms or pronoun substitution.
• Discourse markers: frequent connectors expressing consequence, contrast, addition; structurers for conclusion and information.
• Intertextuality is very common, causing abundant and frequent bibliographic references.
• Modalization is usual in essays, where the author expresses their assessments about the content.

Morphosyntactic Level

In scientific texts, to reinforce objectivity, the syntax tends toward the following preferences:

• The predominant verbal mood is the indicative, in the present (habitual or timeless); the conditional is used to express future hypotheses.
• Use of the third-person singular and the first-person plural (modesty or generalization).
• Impersonal se constructions and passive reflexives. For the same purpose, subordinate clauses with infinitive, participle and gerund are used; the subjunctive is used with impersonal verbs.
• Nominal constructions with abstract nouns.

To reinforce clarity in the transmission of information, constructions that complete and complement nouns are preferred:

• Specifying adjectives, adjectival clauses, appositions, which complete the information.
• Juxtaposition and coordination, sentential clauses, attributive clauses, which define and explain objects and phenomena.

Lexical-Semantic Level

Scientific technical language is characterized by its lexicon and semantics. Each discipline uses its own subcode of technicisms, that is, its own words or techniques, with a single precise meaning for each concept.

Continuous scientific and technological advances, and the constant revision of methods and concepts, cause the permanent creation of terms that join the specific terminology of each discipline.

The creation of terms follows various procedures:

• Language's own mechanisms: suffixation, prefixation, composition, or phrase formation.
• Terms built from compositional elements of Latin and Greek, very present in the generation of technicisms.
• Loanwords from modern languages, above all French and English.
• Acronyms and eponyms: words derived from the name of the inventor or discoverer, or from the country of origin.
• Common use of words that acquire a precise meaning in a given discipline.

Also notable are the following semantic phenomena in scientific terminology:

• Use of synonyms and hyponyms.
• Use of metaphors and personifications.