Specialised language of science and technology and communication

Abstract

This paper has a twofold objective. On the one hand, it tries to describe the specific linguistic features that allow differentiation between general and specialised scientific and technical language. On the other hand, it tries to demonstrate that the selection to a greater or lesser extent of these linguistic features is conditioned by pragmatic factors such as users, context or purpose, resulting in a wide range of degrees of speciality which suggests the existence of a linguistic continuum between specialised and non-specialised. To carry out such a study, two publications with different level of specialisation have been analysed, one from a chemical journal and the other one, from a popular science magazine and both of them dealing with the same scientific event. The results obtained validate the initial hypotheses since they show that the linguistic and structural features modify the communicative and discursive function of a text and therefore, its degree of specialisation. At the same time, results also prove that although texts can be classified by the differences in the degree of speciality, it is impossible to establish a clear separation between them.