What Written Knowledge Does: Three Examples of Academic Discourse

Knowledge produced by the academy is cast primarily in written language—now usually a national language augmented by mathematical and other specialized international notations. This chapter continues the investigation of knowledge-bearing texts, but from a different vantage point. It ranges beyond the scientific paper to examine knowledge-bearing texts in other disciplines in order to explore the possibilities of variation in what constitutes a statement of knowledge and to accentuate textual features through contrast. The differences in the examples reveal the resources of language to mediate the four contexts examined. The examples are not claimed to be typical of their disciplines, nor are the analyses to be taken as a simple model of the spectrum of knowledge. The origin of the papers in separate fields representing the three traditional divisions of the academy of course accentuates the differences on all fronts; however, these examples should not be over-read as typical of large divisions of knowledge.