The epistemic nature of disciplinary discourses: echoing postmodern literary practices = El carácter epistémico de los discursos disciplinares: un eco de la práctica literaria postmoderna

Abstract

This study considers the conflicting demands made upon scientists and engineers when they have toproduce rhetorically-sustained texts whose primary concern is to cope not only with the provisional character of scientific truth, but also with the cultural relativism within which the scientific institution –or “order of discourse” (Foucault 1970)– is immersed. By illustrating it with a corpus of thematic articles, this paper attempts to draw attention to those ideological aspects underpinning the rhetoric of scientific and postmodern writing. The analysis of the corpus will provide evidence of how academic literature in science and technology should be interpreted interdisciplinarily in the light of sociorhetorical theories (Berkenkotter and Huckin 1995), critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1995) and post-structuralist and cultural studies (Lyotard 1984, Solomon 1988, Norris 2000).