Scientific-Technical Texts: Definition, Features, and Structure

Scientific-Technical Texts

A scientific-technical text aims to convey factual knowledge, tested and proven, to enhance the receiver's understanding in a specific scientific field.

The author, typically a specialist, adapts their language to ensure comprehension by recipients who may not be experts. These texts employ clear, accurate, and objective language, often with specialized terminology.

Based on their discipline, these texts include:

• Scientific texts: Aim to explain objective, immutable ideas and concepts from science (e.g., physics, mathematics).
• Technical texts: Focus on developing and applying scientific knowledge.

Key Features of Scientific-Technical Texts

Their rigor and precision are characterized by:

• Expository nature: Primarily expository, though descriptions, narrations, and arguments may also appear.
• Objectivity: Achieved through the use of denotative vocabulary.
• Universality: Possess universal validity.
• Language functions: May include representative, appellative, and metalinguistic functions.
• Specialized language: Use of jargon and non-linguistic codes (e.g., symbols, formulas, drawings).

Types of Scientific-Technical Texts

Texts can be classified based on the author's intention:

• Research Texts: Present the results of new research (e.g., theses, conference papers).
• Instructive Texts: Demonstrate methodological procedures (e.g., instructions, brochures).
• Educational Texts: Aim to increase the receiver's knowledge (e.g., textbooks).

They can also be classified by the target audience:

• Specialized Texts: Written by and for specialists in a particular field (e.g., scientific journals, monographs).
• Informative Texts: Less specialized and aimed at a wider audience (e.g., textbooks, dictionaries).

Linguistic Features

• Semantic and Lexical Plane: Utilizes standard, formal language appropriate for each situation. Features include jargon, acronyms, synonyms, and lexical recurrence. Literary devices like metaphor or personification may occasionally appear.
• Morphological and Syntactic Plane: Characterized by a predominance of nominal style and an abundance of adjacent elements, often using indexicals. Verbal forms predominantly include the third person singular and first person plural, indicative mood, and the present and conditional tenses (to express hypotheses). Declarative sentences are prevalent, though interrogative, hortatory, and hesitant forms may also appear. Frequent use of passive voice, explanatory constructions (e.g., relative clauses, appositive clauses, parenthetical remarks, discourse markers for facilitation), and strong cohesion are common.

Common Structures

Common structures include:

• Linear: Ideas are organized in a presentation-development-conclusion sequence.
• Deductive: Starts with a thesis and then presents specific aspects.
• Inductive: Begins with specific cases and concludes with a thesis.
• Technical Description: A succession of precise characterizations.
• Instructions: Designed to guide the application of a concept or method.