Discourse or Document?
Issues of adopting Emerging Digital Genres for
Scholarly Communication
Dr. des. Cornelius Puschmann, M.A.
Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf
cornelius.puschmann@uni-duesseldorf.de
Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication
5th International Conference on e-Social Science
Maternushaus, Cologne
24 June 2009

My prior research and this presentation
● I study linguistic aspects of scholarly communication (blogs, microblogs, wikis)
● this presentation addresses
● conceptualizations of paper-based vs. digital communication
● how differences in these conceptualizations are linguistically reflected
● what the implications are for scholarly communication

Initial observations
● scholarly communication shaped by the technology
● digital scholarly communication at the moment largely imitates pre-digital forms (“e-journals”,
“e-books” etc)
● we are increasingly shedding the constraints of pre-digital metaphors (Web 2.0)
● but cultural conventions follow technology only slowly (“cultural lag”)

Terminology: digital natives vs. digital immigrants
It is amazing to me how in all the hoopla and debate these days about the decline of education in
the US we ignore the most fundamental of its causes. Our students have changed radically.
Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.
- Prensky (2001)

Terminology: the long tail
For too long we've been suffering the tyranny of
lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to
brain-dead summer blockbusters and
manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our
assumptions about popular taste are actually
artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching -
a market response to inefficient distribution.
The main problem, [...] is that we live in the
physical world.
- Anderson (2004)

Terminology: conceptually spoken vs. conceptually
written language
conceptually spoken language conceptually written language
● prototype: face-to-face communication ● prototype: paper document
● conversation ● reference works
● phone call ● legal texts
● instant messaging/Twitter ● newspapers
● planned speeches ● academic articles
● … ● …
= prototype is medially spoken, co-spatial, = prototype is medially written, non-co-
synchronous, dialogical spatial, asynchronous, monological
Koch & Oesterreicher (1994)

Terminology: conceptual metaphors
There is a cognitive and cross-linguistic tendency to interpret new, abstract, complex and non-
physical concepts in terms of familiar, concrete, simple(r) and tangible concepts.
An example: THEORIES (AND ARGUMENTS) ARE BUILDINGS
● Is that the foundation for your theory?
● The theory needs more support.
● The argument is shaky.
● We need some more facts or the argument will fall apart.
● We need to construct a strong argument for that.
- Lakoff and Johnson (1980)

A (very brief) history of scholarly publishing

Science blogging: UsefulChem
To clear up confusion, I will use the term Open
Notebook Science, which has not yet suffered
meme mutation. By this I mean that there is a
URL to a laboratory notebook that is freely
available and indexed on common search
engines. It does not necessarily have to look
like a paper notebook but it is essential that all
of the information available to the researchers
to make their conclusions is equally available
to the rest of the world. Basically, no insider
information.
- Bradley 2006

Lab wikis: OpenWetWare
OpenWetWare is an effort to promote
the sharing of information, know-how,
and wisdom among researchers and
groups who are working in biology &
biological engineering.
- OpenWetWare.org

arXiv and Twitter mashups: Tweprints
Tweprints aims to collect and
organise the arXiv papers
mentioned on Twitter.
- orbitingfrog.com/arxiv

Video abstracts: Journal of Number Theory
“The WWW allows us to personalize our
papers in ways never before possible...
you can present the motivational history
of the research contained in your
article.”
- David Goss, editor

Visualizing and embedding data: ManyEyes/Wordle
Rather than representing the end result of the
experiment, the data from my experiments
inspired more sharply focused readings of the
texts. A visualization like the Wordle image of
under- and overrepresented words should not,
and really cannot, stand as evidence in proving
a hypothesis. The visualization is simply not
empirical in nature. In a way, word clouds, as
visual representations of criticism, can be seen
as art useful in representing other modes of
art. And, as with any instance of artistic
representation, they remain open to
interpretation.
- Steger (2009)

How can we characterize what is happening?
In comparison to paper-based scholarship, digital scholarly information is...
● disseminated more rapidly and in smaller chunks (e.g. Twitter)
● more strongly personalized (e.g. blogs)
● more strongly contextualized (when/by whom is smth. created?)
● more likely to be non-textual (audio, video, interactive models, ...)

From the Object Web to the Social Web
1990s 2009

Object Web metaphors vs. Social Web metaphors
Object Web metaphors Social Web metaphors
● page ● profile
● site ● friend
● browse ● follow
● “on” the Internet ● poke
● “go to” a website ● “X says in her blog...”
● … ● …
= Web is a physical space filled with = Web is a socio-communicative
objects interaction between people

What has motivated the shift of metaphors?
Object Web Social Web
● bound to specific devices and ● Internet no longer bound to PC and
limited contexts work settings
● limited Internet connectivity ● Internet connectivity is ubiquitous
● communication is asynchronous ● communication is synchronous
● “conveyer-belt interpretation” ● content is created and lives online
● Net speeds up existing practices, ● new practices arise
doesn't change them

Speaking vs. writing
“speaking” “writing”
spontaneous planned
discursive monologic
qualified constative
transient persistent
contextual non-contextual

Frequencies words in academic papers and blogs
Academic papers in linguistics: the, of, and, in, a, to, is, that, universal, this, for,
implicatures, inferences, not, read, scalar, as, are, choice, free
Academic blog entries: the, to, a, and, of, is, in, that, I, it, are, on, as, be, but, for, not, with,
you, this
(both registers are much more diverse than this simple example can show, but:)
● lexis in academic papers is complex and abstract
● blogs assign discourse roles (“I”, “you”)

At the heart of scholarship: authority
● scholarly communication is dependent on authority
● paper-based scholarly communication supports authoritative voice, because
● traditional publishing is mandated by institutions
● printed texts are permanent and immutable
● long, uninterrupted monologues naturally create authority
● author can be linguistically distant from his writing (no first person, no personal verbs etc)
● writing fosters specific conventions and code (formulaic language, jargon) that are
exclusive to a group
● control, permanence, objectivity, exclusivity are so far crucial to scholarly authority

Issues
● especially those disciplines where “the data does not speak” (=Humanities) are potentially
challenged in their authority
● impact on research and publishing practices likely to be significant in those disciplines
● more collaboration
● more stringent methodology
● more empiricism, data
●
new ways and skills needed to establish authority

Likely future forms
● less uninterrupted monologue
● pastiches of media and voices
● meta-information likely to be encoded and exploited (who/when/where) because it simplifies
writing and reading
● permanent, “interpersonal-style” narrative?
● Google Wave?

Thanks for listening!
Thanks for listening!

Discourse or Document?
Issues of adopting Emerging Digital Genres for
Scholarly Communication
Dr. des. Cornelius Puschmann, M.A.
Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf
cornelius.puschmann@uni-duesseldorf.de
Scientific Writing and New Patterns of Scientific Communication
5th International Conference on e-Social Science
Maternushaus, Cologne
24 June 2009