Cover not available

Article published In: Language, Context and Text
Vol. 2:1 (2020) ► pp.171–186

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Nominalisation and genre in early discourses on electricity

Franklin, Priestley and the Philosophical transactions

 | York University
Published online: 29 January 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/langct.00025.cum
Abstract
Halliday proposes that a key role in the language of science is played by compacting nominalisation, a strategy by which qualities and processes in one phase of a discourse are then nominalised in a following phase to facilitate the flow of argument. Compacting nominalisation is very characteristic of Priestley, Joseph. 1767. The history and present state of electricity, with original experiments. London: Dodsley, Johnson, Davenport & Cadell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar The history and present state of electricity. However, another book of the same era and field, Franklin, Benjamin. 1751. New experiments and observations on electricity, made at Philadelphia in America. London: E. Cave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar–1754 New experiments and observations on electricity, employs little of this strategy. One explanation lies in genre differences. Franklin’s book and accounts of electrical experiments into the Philosophical transactions of the same era are both generically similar to and different from Priestley’s book, quite beyond the issue of compacting nominalisation. Generic similarities and differences are here demonstrated in terms of register values.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Franklin and Priestley
    • 1.2A previous interpretation of Franklin and Priestley
  • 2.The method of this study
  • 3.The genre analysis
    • 3.1Introduction to genre analysis: field, tenor and mode
    • 3.2Comparative analysis of the two texts
      • 3.2.1Genre typology in the Franklin and Priestley excerpts
      • 3.2.2Field comparison: activity sequences and lexis
      • 3.2.3Tenor comparison: Status, contact and affect
      • 3.2.4Mode comparison: The interpersonal and existential axes
  • 4.Comparable Philosophical Transactions texts: Henry Miles and William Watson
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
References (22)
References
Banks, David. 2008. The development of scientific writing: Linguistic features and historical context. London: Equinox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cohen, I. Bernard (ed.). 1941. Benjamin Franklin’s experiments: A new edition of Franklin’s experiments and observations on electricity. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cummings, Michael. 2019. The language of early electrical science: Priestley and Franklin. In Miriam Pérez-Veneros & Izaskun Elorza (eds.), Systemic functional linguistics at the crossroads: Intercultural and contrastive descriptions of language, 153–159. Salamanca, Spain: University of Salamanca.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eggins, Suzanne. 1994. An introduction to systemic functional linguistics. London: Pinter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Franklin, Benjamin. 1751. New experiments and observations on electricity, made at Philadelphia in America. London: E. Cave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. 1988. On the language of physical science. In Mohsen Ghadessy (ed.), Registers of written English: Situational factors and linguistic features, 162–178. London: Pinter. Reprinted in Michael A. K. Halliday & James R. Martin (eds.) 1993: 54–68; Michael A. K. Halliday 2004: 140–158.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1998. Things and relations: Regrammaticizing experience as technical knowledge. In James R. Martin & Robert Veel (eds.) 1998: 185–235. Reprinted in Halliday 2004. 49–101.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1999. The grammatical construction of scientific knowledge: The framing of the English clause. In Rema R. Favretti, Giorgio Sandri & Roberto Scazzieri (eds.), Incommensurability and translation: Kuhnian perspectives on scientific communication and theory change, 85–116. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Reprinted in Michael A. K. Halliday 2004: 102–134.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2004. The language of science, volume 5 in the collected works of M.A.K. Halliday. Edited by Jonathan J. Webster. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. & James R. Martin. 1993. Writing science: Literacy and discursive power. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. & Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen. 2014. Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar (4th edition). New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heilbron, John L. 1979. Electricity in the 17th and 18th centuries: A study of early modern physics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1997. Analyzing genre: Functional parameters. In Frances Christie & James R. Martin (eds.), Genre and institutions: Social processes in the workplace and school, 3–39. London: Cassell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, James R. & David Rose. 2003. Working with discourse: Meaning beyond the clause. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Genre relations: Mapping culture. London: Equinox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, James R. & Robert Veel (eds.). 1998. Reading science: Critical and functional perspectives on discourses of science. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miles, Henry. 1746–1747. Extracts of two letters from the Rev. Henry Miles, D.D. and F.R.S. to Mr. Henry Baker, F.R.S. concerning the effects of a cane of black sealing-wax and a cane of brimstone, in electrical experiments. Philosophical Transactions 441. 27–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Priestley, Joseph. 1767. The history and present state of electricity, with original experiments. London: Dodsley, Johnson, Davenport & Cadell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1769. The history and present state of electricity, with original experiments. 2nd edition. London: Dodsley, Johnson, Davenport & Cadell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rose, David. 1997. Science, technology and technical literacies. In Frances Christie & James R. Martin (eds.), Genre and institutions: Social processes in the workplace and school, 40–72. London: Cassell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Watson, William. 1748. A collection of the electrical experiments communicated to the Royal Society by Wm. Watson, F.R.S. read at several meetings between October 29, 1747 and January 21 following. Philosophical Transactions 451. 49–120. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue