Scientific style: its main characteristics

Scientific style is a style of speech used in the field of science and learning. Its main features are the following: generality and abstractness, terminology, emphasized logic. Secondary features: uniqueness, semantic accuracy, standardity, objectivity, brevity, rigor, clarity, uncategoricity, impersonality, imagery, evaluation, etc.

There are three sub-styles: the actual scientific style of the text (articles, monographs, dissertations, scientific reports, speeches in scientific conferences, debates), scientific and educational (lectures, textbooks), popular science (articles, popular scientific reports, essays).

Scientific style: its main characteristics

Academician Likhachev DS in his works pointed out:

1. Requirements for scientific style are significantly different from the requirements for the language of fiction.

2. The use of metaphors and different images in the language of scientific work is permissible only if it is necessary to put a logical emphasis on a certain thought. In the scientific style, imagery is only a pedagogical device necessary to draw attention to the main idea of the work.

3. A really good language of scientific style should not be seen by the reader. He should notice only the thought, and not the language by which thought is expressed.

4. The main advantage of a scientific language is clarity.

5. Other advantages of scientific style - it's brevity, lightness, simplicity.

6. Scientific style implies minimal use of subordinate clauses in scientific works. Phrases should be short, the transition from one sentence to another - natural and logical, "unnoticed."

8. Frequent use of pronouns should be avoided, which leads one to think that they have been replaced, to which they refer.

9. Do not be afraid of repetition, try to get rid of them mechanically. The same concept should be designated by the same term, it can not be replaced by a synonym. It is necessary to avoid only such repetitions, which came from the poverty of the writer's language.

10. It is necessary to avoid words-parasites, which do not add anything to the thought. However, an important idea should be disclosed in more detail, with some stoppage on it.

11. Scientific style calls for special attention to the quality of words. It is better to use the word "opposite" instead of "reverse", "difference" instead of "difference".

Texts of scientific style: characteristics of language tools

- Book words with an abstract (abstract) and generalized meaning (reflection, thinking, weightlessness, changeability);

- general scientific vocabulary (process, magnitude, quality, component, cause);

- word-terms - a set of titles, united in the terminological system of a particular science (plankton, phoneme, congruence, reflection);

- specific combinations of words (boiling point, demographic crisis, pancreas, compound sentence) ;

- high frequency of adjectives (about 13%), prepositions, conjunctions, prepositional combinations (for reasons, with help, on a basis, relatively ..., in relation to, in connection with ... etc.);

- Complex sentences (especially complex ones);

- Proposals with introductory words, participial and participial turns.

Scientific style should be familiar to everyone.