The Language of Science Volume 5

by Halliday, M.A.K.; Webster, Jonathan J.

• ISBN13: 9780826458711
• ISBN10: 0826458718
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-06-22
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

The fifth volume of the collected works of Professor M.A.K. Halliday, The Language of Science, explores the semantic character of scientific discourse. The chapters are organized into two sections, one being on grammatical metaphor; the other dealing with scientific English. In language, there exists the potential for constructing new discourses, among them scientific discourse. The volume opens with a new work from Professor Halliday addressing the question, How big is a language? It is a question that goes to the heart of the paradigmatic complexity, or meaning potential, that characterizes language.

Author Biography

M. A. K. Halliday was born in Yorkshire in 1925. He was trained in Chinese for war service with the British Army, studied in China, taught Chinese in Britain for a number of years, then moved into linguistics, becoming in 1965 Professor of General Linguistics at University College London Jonathan J. Webster received his PhD in linguistics from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is currently Acting Head, Department of Chinese. Translation and Linguistics, and Associate Dean (Research and Administration), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, at the City University of Hong Kong

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Acknowledgements	ix
Introduction: How Big is a Language?
On the Power of Language	xi
PART ONE GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR	1	(134)
Editor's Introduction	3	(4)
1 Language and the Reshaping of Human Experience	7	(17)
2 Language and Knowledge: the 'Unpacking' of Text	24	(25)
3 Things and Relations: Regrammaticizing Experience as Technical Knowledge	49	(53)
4 The Grammatical Construction of Scientific Knowledge: the Framing of the English Clause	102	(33)
PART TWO SCIENTIFIC ENGLISH	135	(92)
Editor's Introduction	137	(3)
5 On the Language of Physical Science	140	(19)
6 Some Grammatical Problems in Scientific English	159	(22)
7 On the Grammar of Scientific English	181	(18)
8 Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power	199	(28)
Bibliography	227	(10)
Index	237