Reflections on the challenging issues posed by highly-advanced scientific nominal group titles

Abstract

That English is the language of science and that nominal groups are a recurrent structure in highly-advanced scientific discourse are both a general truth. In line with this, previous studies have confirmed that title nominal groups are also the most recurrent structure in research papers and review papers written in English and in Spanish in the fields of Biology, Biochemistry and Medicine and in the fields of Anthropology, Linguistics and Psychology (Soler, 2007, 2009, 2011a,b). Through their publications, scientists, whether native English speakers or non-native English speakers, demonstrate to have acquired proficiency in different scientific discourse genres which, in turn, involves an awareness of which grammatical structures are the 157 most appropriate to the communicative context and purpose of their research studies. Of these two groups, the one composed of non-native English speakers is particularly exposed to a series of linguistic difficulties to be able to have their papers published in high-impact factor journals. In many cases, translators are needed to cope with these difficulties. The purpose of this paper is therefore to present a series of reflections on the interesting issues and challenging difficulties derived from optimal writing and/or translating (from Spanish into English or vice-versa) title nominal groups in the light of a hallidayan approach (Halliday, 1994). These reflections are based on a reading of related literature (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Martin, Matthiessen & Pinter, 1997; among others) and, more importantly, on the authors´ o most appropriate to the communicative context and purpose of their research studies. Of these two groups, the one composed of non-native English speakers is particularly exposed to a series of linguistic difficulties to be able to have their papers published in high-impact factor journals. In many cases, translators are needed to cope with these difficulties. The purpose of this paper is therefore to present a series of reflections on the interesting issues and challenging difficulties derived from optimal writing and/or translating (from Spanish into English or vice-versa) title nominal groups in the light of a hallidayan approach (Halliday, 1994). These reflections are based on a reading of related literature (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Martin, Matthiessen & Pinter, 1997; among others) and, more importantly, on the authors´ own title database composed of 1140 research and review paper titles published during 1996-2002 in two fields: biological sciences and social sciences. Reasons for choosing scientific titles in particular lie in the need to continue with our studies on this particular section of papers as part of the research project “Textual aspects of scientific knowledge” which is being currently carried out at the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina. This work represents an attempt to bring these diverse reflections together to further provide a framework which will be of value to scientists and teachers and learners of English and Spanish for Scientific and Academic Purposes.