In this article, we examine some properties of the interface between meaning and knowledge in popularization discourse in the Spanish press aboutthe sequencing of the human genome. After a multidisciplinary account of popularization in terms of text, context and knowledge, we analyze some semantic aspects of 42 texts in El País, focusing especially on denominations, explanations and the description of new objects. Besides the usual metaphors conceptualizing the genome in terms of a code or a book, and sequencing as decodification, we especially found that descriptions of new objects tend to be organized using a limited number of fundamental categories, such as Location, Composition, Size, Quantity, Appearance and Functions. We surmise that these meaning categories correspond to underlying cognitive categories that organize the schematic structure of knowledge about things. Both in the discursive and the epistemic analysis of these texts, we are specifically also interested in the strategies of specialized journalists for the management of knowledge: what knowledge is being presupposed, what knowledge is being ‘reminded’or actualized and what knowledge is expressed and newly constructed.

The aim of this study is twofold: one, to determine the presence and function of scientific knowledge when it is required by such cases as `mad cow' disease, when the crisis breaks in the press; and two, to explore the role of scientific information through the analysis of quoted speech used by journalists in their discourse. Citation is the most explicit form of inclusion of other-discourse (D2) in one's-discourse (D1). Within the framework of the theory of énonciation (Ducrot's poliphony perspective), in combination with a critical view of discourse, we analyse the following: (1) the identity of agents of reference chosen by journalists; (2) the specific linguistic choices made in the pre-citation segment where the agents are introduced, that is, identification of discourse procedures and use of specific verbs of communication. The study shows the proportion of scientific and non-scientific voices, the different ways of representing science agents in the process of news communication as well as the use of citation by journal writers not just to confer authority and legitimation to their discourse but to set the scene of the conflict. The scientific role is not presented as a decisive social role capable on its own of reassuring public alarm and journalists fail to secure appropriate credibility for the scientific community.

This collection of studies on communication between specialists and the general public owes its origins to the stimulus received from the Science Communication Observatory (OCC) and its collaboration with the Discourse Studies Group (GED), both at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. A project initiated in 1997 involving a team of linguists working on discourse 1 and examining different aspects of linguistic usage in scientific writing for the general public, has made it possible to strengthen links with other researchers in the field. Links were, more specifically, established with those currently engaged in the analysis of the different linguistic and discourse level features typically found in science writing for the general public (henceforth popularization of science, or popular scientific writing). Out of this came first of all the publication of a special issue of the IberoAmerican journal Discurso y Sociedad (Calsamiglia, 2000), followed by the compilation of the present issue in which scholars from different countries (Germany, Argentina, Spain and France) have participated. These articles had been presented in an earlier draft at the International Pragmatics Conference. 2As co-ordinator I would like to express my thanks for the effort made by the researchers in rendering their original paper into English and for their intention to make their work available to the English-speaking world. Professor Myers of Lancaster University (England) was invited later to provide an overview of research carried out into popular scientific writing, an area that can be approached from a number of different angles. The gap between science and societyThis issue of the journal examines the communication of scientific knowledge, exploring facets of the discourse characteristically used to present such knowledge to the general public. In doing so, it is immediately evident that two aspects are crucial: (1) the first taking part in the communication: the role and position

The use of Catalan and Castilian, and of code switching between these two languages, is observed and analyzed in the conversations of youth groups in the Barcelona barri of Sant Andren. The authors try to demonstrate that the institutionalized diglossic situation in Barcelona affects the individual use of Catalan and Castilian even in situations where one language or another is not normatively required. Special attention is devoted to the analysis of the different types of code switching.

No abstract