Investigating Specialized Discourse is a shortened and revised textbook edition of the monograph Specialized Discourse (2003). This book analyses the various features of specialized discourse in order to assess its degree of specificity and diversification, as compared to general language. Prior to any analysis of such traits, the notion of specialized discourse and its distinctive properties are clarified. The presence of such properties is accounted for not only in linguistic but also in pragmatic terms since the approach is interpretative rather than merely descriptive. Indeed, the complexity of this discourse calls for a multidimensional analysis, covering both lexis and morpho-syntax as well as textual patterning. Some lexical aspects, morpho-syntactic features and textual genres are also examined from a diachronic perspective, thus showing how various conventions concerning specialized discourse have developed over the last centuries.

Contents:

Defining the Notion of 'Specialized Discourse' - Lexical Features of Specialized Discourse - Syntactic Features of Specialized Discourse - Textual Features of Specialized Discourse - The Development of Specialized Discourse in the 17th Century - The Origins of the Experimental Essay - The Formation of the Lexis of Computer Science - The Language of Popularisation.

Maurizio Gotti is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Bergamo. He is Director of CERLIS, the research centre on specialized languages based at the University of Bergamo. His main research areas are the features and origins of specialized discourse (Robert Boyle and the Language of Science, 1996, Specialized Discourse: Linguistic Features and Changing Conventions, 2003).