Involved In Writing Science: Nineteenth-Century Women in the Coruña Corpus

Abstract

[Abstract]The aim of this work is to offer an overview of female scientific writing in English in the nineteenth century. In particular, we want to focus on the analysis of the more or less informational style of texts written by women. Variables such as discipline or subject-matter and genre will be used to measure the way in which the informative character of scientific texts develops once Empiricism is well settled. Assuming the andro-centric nature of scientific discourse in the Modern Age, the survey of these variables will help us explore the extent to which this informational style is revealed in female scientific works. The fact that these authors are women could imply that some involvement on their part may be required. This could be caused by extra-linguistic factors such as the need to be taken more seriously not only in a field completely dominated by males but also in the social context surrounding women’s lives in general.