Variations in Specialized Genres

The book is an edited volume of articles by eminent scholars in the field of specialist knowledge transmission through genre variation focussing particularly on the issues of standardization and hybridity. It offers some of the important findings of a National Research Project that has involved researchers from several Italian and foreign universities, in particular those from the University of Palermo and the University of Salento. The main focus of the project was to analyse discursive popularization in the contexts and domains of natural sciences, law and commerce, viewed in a diachronic perspective.

The book is an edited volume of carefully selected articles by eminent scholars focusing on the specialist knowledge transmission through genre variation, particularly on the issues of standardization and hybridity. The main focus was to analyse discursive popularization in the contexts and domains of natural sciences, law, and commerce, viewed in a diachronic perspective. The scholars involved have concentrated their studies on the creative transformation, hybridization, and even bending of genres used to popularise scientific, legal and commercial discourse for different communicative purposes and audiences, thus extending the conventional genre boundaries to disseminate specialized knowledge. The proliferation of specialized knowledge has indeed created a growing need to convey expert knowledge to a variety of addressees, with different levels of shared understanding and expertise. Such disciplinary knowledge can only be conveyed through various subtle manipulations of generic conventions keeping in mind the aims, the users, the media, the social contexts, and the domain with which specific knowledge is associated.

Contenu
Part I Theoretical and Methodological Themes Part II Part II Issues in Specific Domains and Contexts