Example 4: Complex and figurative language

In addition to longer sentences, in certain types of scientific texts, particularly but not exclusively popular science where the function is to entertain as well as educate, authors may resort to prosaic imagery in order to make certain concepts easier to comprehend, to establish a proximity with the reader, and to make the subject more interesting. As a result, we see quite vivid language such as the following, which is taken from a scientific monograph on radio-telescopy.

• In the splendour of a moonless night, far from the pollution of the sky by artificial lighting, the first revelation is that of the stars. (Schatzman & Praderie 1993:1)

Example 5: Vivid imagery in scientific language

Popular science publications provide an even richer supply of vivid, literary language and imagery:

• An awful fate befell many of the young women hired to paint radium onto the dials of watches, so that they would glow in the dark. [...] Within a year their teeth began to fall out and their jaws disintegrated. (Lane 2002:109-110)

• We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms - up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested - probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. (Bryson 2003: 176)

Example 6: Vivid imagery, literary style and varied rhetorical devices

Metaphors

Often thought to be the sole preserve of literary language, metaphors are an incredibly useful tool for writers of both scientific and, to a slightly lesser extent, technical texts. Metaphors are particularly valuable in scientific texts where they help authors to put a concrete name to an abstract concept. Metaphors such as Black Hole, Greenhouse Effect and Double Helix are some of the better known scientific metaphors and it is quite clear that they are beneficial in providing not just a neat and tidy term for the various concepts, but also a way of explaining what they mean in a way to which readers can easily relate.

Metaphors (and similes) are also used to explain complex processes and systems by taking advantage of readers' existing knowledge and understanding of the world around them. Looking at another example taken from Nick Lane's book on oxygen, we can see how the biological necessity for genetic variation and mutation is explained through the metaphor of a bank robber.

• [...] a genetically static population is a sitting target for pathogens and predators. In the same way it is much easier to rob a bank if you have memorized the unchanging patrols of security guards. (Lane 2002:235)

Example 7: Metaphors in scientific texts

But it is not just scientific writers who can craft a clever metaphor to convey their ideas. Technical texts are also littered with metaphorical language and it too serves an important purpose. Whether we are using terms like worm screws in mechanical engineering texts or referring to concepts such as communities or groups in technical white papers for website software, it is difficult to avoid language which is metaphorical on some level. From the examples given above, worm screws are so named because the shape of the screw is reminiscent of a worm. In the field of computer science, the notion of communities and groups such as those seen on social networking sites are user-friendly ways of expressing what is essentially a relationship between different types of data in a database. Other familiar technical metaphors relate to computer viruses such as Trojan Horses, worms and zombie computers while handshake protocols refer to the various steps in the process of connecting a computer to a server.