Constructing Carcinogen Risk in Scientific Discourse Through Ideological Conflict: A Cognitive Pragmatic Analysis

Abstract

With the increasing rates of cancer worldwide, a great deal of scientific discourse is devoted to arguments and statements about cancer and its causes. Scientists from different fields try to seize any available chance to warn people of the risk of consuming and exposing to carcinogens that have, unfortunately, become essential parts of modern life. The present paper attempts to investigate the proximization strategy through which scientists construct carcinogen risk to enhance people’s preventive actions against these carcinogens. The paper targets the construction which depends on producing the conflict between the values of the people themselves and the contrasting values assigned to carcinogens. To achieve this aim, Cap’s (2013) cognitive pragmatic theory of proximization is employed for analysis. The theory is a component of three proximization strategies: spatial, temporal and axiological. Of these three proximization strategies, axiological proximization strategy is applied to a corpus from scientific discourse. To arrive at more objective results, the analysis procedure is both qualitative and quantitative. Mathematical calculations are performed through corpus linguistics using Anthony’s AntConc (2019) corpus linguistics software. Eventually, the paper has arrive at certain conclusions that reveal the way actors (producers of scientific discourse) utilize axiological proximization strategy to portray carcinogen risk as a means for promoting people to take preventive measures.

Using Ideological Conflict to Create Carcinogen Risk in Arabic Scientific Discourse: A Corpus-Based Study

“…The goal of proximization in general and axiological proximization (henceforth AP) in particular is to persuade individuals to take precautions against substances (carcinogens) that individuals have previously believed to be environmentally friendly. Depending on AP, Khalil and Al-Zubaidi (2022) have investigated how ideological conflict is employed to construct carcinogen risk in the English SD. According to the present paper, the problem is that there is a gap in the literature regarding how ideological conflict in the Arabic SD can portray carcinogen risk.…”

Constructing Imminent Carcinogenic Attack in English and Arabic Scientific Discourse: A Corpus-Based Contrastive Study

“…From a cognitive pragmatic standpoint, it appears that the participants in the scientific discourse on carcinogen risk, in particular, adjust their category choice to match the mental states that are typical in this situation for both actors and participants. The common interest shared by both actors and partners is that they are searching for information that they are deliberately producing and receiving (Jaafar & Jasim, 2022;Khalil, 2022). Carcinogens represent a vital issue that has been continuously discussed by scientific discourse.…”