MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC WRITING IN LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLISH

TAAVITSAINEN Irma, PAHTA Paivi

ISBN 10: 0521831334 / ISBN 13: 9780521831338

Published by Cambridge University Press, 2004. 9780521831338, 2004

About this Item

1st edn. 8vo. Original gilt lettered brown cloth (faint spotting on top edge - otherwise Fine), dustwrapper (Fine). Pp. xvi + 284, illus with figures, tables and b&w map (no inscriptions).

Seller Inventory # 175566

Bibliographic Details

• Title: MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC WRITING IN LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLISH
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 9780521831338
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521831334
• ISBN 13: 9780521831338
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Medicine

About this title

Synopsis

Medical and scientific writing in English has evolved over more than a millennium, from its genesis in the Anglo-Saxon era to its present-day position as the 'lingua franca' of science. This 2004 volume focuses on its development as a genre in late medieval English. During this period it emerged in the vernacular, as its Graeco-Roman conventions were modified in a new socio-historical context. Seven experts discuss the various linguistic and textual processes involved in vernacularising science, and how they related to communicative practices and to the writers and readers of medical and scientific texts. Referring to authentic medieval texts, they show how discourse communities adopted scriptorial 'house-styles', how vocabulary and code-switching patterns reflect the multilingual context of the period, and how intertextuality featured between shared materials. Bringing together several perspectives on this research area, this book will be welcomed by linguists and historians of science alike.

About the Authors

Irma Taavitsainen is Professor of English Philology at the University of Helsinki, and deputy director of the Research Unit of Variation and Change, University of Helsinki.

Päivi Pahta is Research Fellow in the multidisciplinary Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and a member of the Research Unit for Variation and Change in English, both at the University of Helsinki.