Disciplinary discourse

Abstract

ABSTRACT The cultures of academic communities, the epistemological distinctions between different fields of enquiry, and the interrelationships between the two, form the underlying theme of this paper. The discussion is based on a study of the linguistic features of three disciplines—history, sociology, and physics—with special reference to verbal indications of their tacit knowledge, the characteristic terms of commendation and criticism they deploy, the nature of their professional publications, and the ways in which their arguments are generated and developed. Such aspects of disciplinary discourse, it is argued, point towards more basic contrasts in knowledge structure: between density and diffuseness, atomism and holism, stability and volatility, generality and particularity, and the like. The study forms part of a wider exploration of forms and communities of knowledge.