Explaining evolution: the use of animacy in an example of semi-formal science writing

Abstract

Science writers who explain complex ideas to a non-specialist audience make frequent use of metaphor as a help in explaining, but metaphor can carry dangers as well as advantages. This article focuses on the use of one particular type of metaphor, namely animacy metaphor. It takes the form of a detailed case-study of an article in the magazine New Scientist describing a new theory of the evolution of multicellular organisms, the Snowball theory. The article fits closely into the rhetorical pattern found for informal written explanatory texts by Low (1997), with the addition of large numbers of animacy metaphors. The animacy metaphors form three clusters, which occur at salient points in the argument, serve to carry the argument forward and are increased in impact by the use of ‘resonance’ effects and metonymic overlays. The analysis further examines what happens between the metaphor clusters, where it is found that, instead of counteracting the animacy, a range of non-metaphoric devices maintain a continuously high level of animacy. The result, it is argued, represents a rhetorical imbalance: the use of animacy and metaphor without accompanying control.