Analysis of the Language of Scientific Divulgation Texts Related to Genetics Inserted in the Biology Textbook

Abstract

The Scientific Divulgation texts (SD), when inserted in Biology textbooks, are capable to help to bring students closer to scientific knowledge, especially in relation to Genetics, which is still seen as a difficult discipline to understand and which is linked to ethical, social, political and cultural issues. In this way, it was questioned the aspects of the language when the SD texts are inserted in the Biology textbooks. Thus, the goals of this research was to analyze the language presented by SD texts related to Genetics present in the Biology textbooks. In this sense, 17 texts were selected from a collection of textbook and were analyzed based on the presence of metaphors, analogies, explanatory terms and conceptual errors. The results indicated that the most of the texts presented linguistic resources and that they were used with the intention to facilitate the student's understanding of this theme. It was concluded that maintaining these resources, we could contribute to bring the reader closer to knowledge about Science.