Scientific communication and the nature of science: An illustration of oscillations from researcher’s proximity to researcher's distance in scientific titles and its pedagogical implications

Abstract

Although positive science has progressed under the spell of the objectivity paradigm and the primacy of its method, scientific discourse shows how this paradigm has not survived for long. Based on our research on scientific titles, the purpose of this work is to reflect on the demythification of this paradigm through title discoursive strategies. Thus, 1) reflections on science, particularly its communicative potential, from the point of view of the epistemology of science are provided, and 2) examples from a title database including 570 research and review paper titles written in English in the fields of biological and social sciences are analyzed as excerpts of pendulations to communicate knowledge via total agency concealment, particularly following an objectbased approach, to agency textual proximity. These title oscillations illustrate how scientists choose to show themselves in the process of knowledge communication and give clues on how to explicitly teach these strategies. Though restricted to a specific example, these clues shed light on what issues regarding the communicative approach of science could be explicitly taught to effectively guide title reading and writing in science.

Keywords

• Scientific Communication
• NOS Instruction
• Scientific titles
• English for Specific Purposes
• Objectivity