LINGUA E TRADUZIONE INGLESE III

 English for science and Technology

Specific features that belong to specialized languages. Is an enormous field composed of various
sub-categories.
Each sub-genre has its own tendencies in terms of layout, registers, spoken and written forms,
patterns… we have many different genres and sub-genres. There are features and constraints.
Notion of science and technology: we go back to ancient history. Originally the language of science
wants to identify general rules and abstract notions, which is different from the language of
technology which applies these notions to the real world.
Science tries to understand the world around us in order to understand that world better.
Technology uses these notion in order to act on reality.
Abstract and practical applications: these two languages are strongly connected together.
Rules that can be generalized and be applied to different situations.
They can be inserted into specialized language: languages which are present in different situations
of our everyday life.
The first specialized language studied was language of science and technology, characterized by
specific features.
-Top-down: we can identify the various phases of scientific language. Once we have identified the
general features, we can identify each phases: from the general to the particular.
-Botton-up: from the particular to the general.
Analysis of the sections of a scientific article (part of introduction of a scientific article).
The translation of terminology is the easiest part, the difficult part is the use of linguistic elements
that belong to the ordinary language and that in these specialized languages assume a different
functions and different meanings.
1- First paragraph: present tense, some adverbs. We have a statement of the situation. There
are things that are already known. (Dato di fatto). It’s not theorized anything. It presents a
problem that is not completely understood and the situation. We have the present tense
because it’s a statement of what we have in front of us at the moment. Stating current
knowledge.
2- In the second paragraph the author is referring to previous experiments (previous
literature, what is already published, what has been done). In the past some progress has
been made. Summarizing previous research. Author-centered, weak author orientation
(with young scientists) or subject orientation (scientific language is a completely objective
language, these days we have much more the ‘I’ of the author because this objectivity of
science has been demonstrated to be a theoretical objectivity.
3- ‘Nevertheless ’we have a problem because besides the experiments, more data are
required. This paragraph is connected to the first one. There’s the justification for the study
presented in the article. There’s the indication of a gap in the previous research. The
 author is questioning about the previous research, or maybe there’s the appreciation
towards what has been done before.
4- Introduction of the present research: by stating and outlining the purpose of the present
research.

From the general structures we have identified the tenses…

LEXICAL FEATURES
-Technical terms
-Monoreferenciality: one word has only one meaning. Each specialized language shares this
feature. The same term can also acquire a different meaning in the different fields. It’s determined
by a very specific context in which the term appears. It can have a different meaning according to
a different field (physics, mathematics, medicine).
-Abbreviations, initialisms (formed by initials but that doesn’t form a real word), acronyms
(something that we can read as a real word).
-Numerals, special symbols (unit of measurement…)
-Lexical density: our language has all the words that carry meanings. (Tutte le parole sono
significative), by omitting some elements that don’t carry a specific meaning, the text is very
dense.
-Verbs of expositions: ascertain, assume
-Verbs of warning and advising, of manipulation
-Adjectival modifiers: ‘careful’, ‘gradual’, ‘periodic’
-Compounds with Latin and Greek origins.
-Neologisms
-Borrowings and loans
-New applications of words in the general lexicon: we adopt a word that already exists in the
ordinary English and we use it within a specific field (for example the word ‘force’).
GRAMMATICAL FEATURES
-Impersonal style, passive forms: distinctive features
-Compactness of structures: we have long sentences
-Absence of connective items such as ‘however’
-Presence of nous phrases
-Nominalization, and use of past participle.
  Interlinguistic translation of science and technological language
Translation of these languages into something that can be more comprehensible.
‘Such’ is a novel by Christine Brooke Rose in 1966. She juxtaposes different languages (plain
English and high specialized English, in particular the language of astrophysics).
Specialized languages are present also in the products that we enjoy the most. This novel shows us
how a specialized language can be translated intralinguistically in order to be inserted into popular
products.
Poetic text about something that is very human , she talks about the nature of the human being
and she connects big bang to the life of human beings on earth, the way they are related to each
other… the novel tells the story of Larry, who works as a psychiatry. Three days journey, in which
the word he inhabits is not the same word. It is very much shaped by the language of astrophysics.
Normal life in which he uses ordinary language and the specific language he uses during his
journey.  ordinary language and language of astrophysics integrate with each other. When he
wakes up he apply the scientific language of astrophysics to his everyday life.
The author wants to demonstrate that also the scientific language can be metaphorical, scientific
language creates poetry, which is the ultimate aim of Brooke Rose.
Repetitions of expressions: a word which is used during the journey has only one meaning, but
maybe the same word used into the real life can have additional meaning, and this can be very
challenging.
12/04/2023
Theory of identity: the identity we are accustomed to think in terms of specific characteristics of
an individual is a construction. The author expresses herself in negative terms towards the
psychoanalytic analysis of the individual. This idea is conveyed throw Larry’s child.
Repression of aspects of one’s identity is represented when Larry sent his son to orbit.
Children are planets. The social self is only a part of the self.
The big bang comes to represent the birth of the identity of the individual  the theory of
astrophysics and the expanding universe to the black hole (death).
Astrophysics language is used to refer to popular traditions and notions.
There are also references to religion (resuscitation, Larry comes back to life after three days) and
some characters like Jonas.
The names of the children represent the shapes and their characteristics (really, bucket…): all
these names are songs at the same time.  TALKING NAMES. With the Italian translation there is
the loss of the entire semantic field that we have in the original text, for example the connection
between the planet child and the music.
It’s a poetic text: throw the use of scientific language, Brooke Rose menages to create a poetic
text.
Since the text is very challenging, the first part of analysis must be very careful.
The pre-translation phase we have the:
1- Lexical level: reference to religious discourse, to psychoanalysis, presence of neologism,
compounds, numerals. The original text is varied but at the same time the author menages
to keep a strong cohesion. When Larry comes back to life, he is a changed person, he looks
at reality in a different way  Larry, just as the schizophrenic, tries to bring the elements
of the other life to the real one. Despite the different languages, there is a strong cohesion.
2- Morphosyntactic level: impersonal tone which tries to mimic the scientific prose. Larry is
not really defined as protagonist: he simply describes what he sees. He records what is
going on around him. (al posto dell’ombelico ha una macchina fotografica). We don’t have
a filter. Larry himself is not understanding what’s going on. Larry rather than a protagonist
is a narrator. we simply get to know him throw how he reports what he sees  detached
tone due to the scientific outlook of the text. All the terms have a standardized translation
and that could lose some connections that we have in the original text.
Objective and detached tone. This tone should be maintained.
3- Textual level: we have some sections. Very often we switch narrative levels: we start in the
waking life, then in the after life and so on. We have unmarked sections.
We are always in the afterlife, but when Larry comes back to his waking life he is not able
to distinguish the different levels of existence.
The journey could be describes as a schizophrenic journey. In this afterlife he loses his
social identity, and in fact he loses his name, his family and everybody was not there.
The words that Larry utters in the novel really reminds us of the individual that have a new
relationship with reality. The individual has a new relationship with himself.
The name of a person gives to that person the identity, so losing the name, Larry is losing
his identity.  singularity, both Larry and the schizophrenics find their real identity. But
they know that the real self cannot be known. They can only discover layers.
The world before language cannot be observed, cannot be described.
Throw this language, the author is trying to demonstrate the uncertainties of these
theories and notions with absolute truth (identity…).
Throw this language (technicisms, scientific language and connection between science and
humanity and religion) the author is able to convey her own conception of identity.
When we want to translate this language is very difficult.
The pre-phase translation is essential. We have to identity the target receiver. The reader has to
be an aristocratic reader, so a reader who is able to appreciate how the language is used and that
within language everything is important.
The function of the target text has to remain the same.
We can always add some elements (divergence), but most of the time a novel like this require a
literal translation in order to maintain the semantic fields to the original text: be as faithful as
possible.
Use of repetitions, which are fundamental: very often these repetitions present small variations.
From waking life to afterlife we find repetitions which have small changes and the meaning can be
different. It’s very hard to translate these minimal variations.
Another issue that can be very challenging is the use of different registers because there are
different situations which are represented.  each interlocutor brings out a different register. We
have to convey the different registers because they can help the reader to identity the different
context of situations. (Example of the nurse ‘’you don’t have to choke me, get off!’’).
Different registers from formal to informal. Then we have also different dialects:
-Temporal, geographical dialects.
Cultural references: flan-pudding that we translate with ‘budino’. But we use the sense of the text,
so it would be better to translate it with ‘frittella’ (che è piatta, si riferisce all’ombelico di Larry, in
cui l’occhio della fotocamera chiusa sembra una frittella’).
There’s also a reference to the jazz music
Post translation phase: go back and re-read the translation  ‘for heaven’s sake’ ‘per l’amor del
cielo’: if we use ‘per dio’ for an Italian reader could be a strong expression. So we have to change a
little bit the isotopy of the protagonist.
17/04/2023

18/04/2023
Mystics and Pitagora
Popularization /specialization of Livio’s book.
In the second chapter of Livio’s book (Mystics: The Numerologist and the Philosopher), we can see
that the text has not only various linguistic features that render its language specialized, but also
elements which might be interpreted as signals of a “popular” level of specialization. Indeed,
features such as the presence of numerals, special symbols, graphic representations, words of
classical origin, words which, during Pythagoras's time, were considered neologisms etc. can be
undoubtedly considered elements of the specialized language of mathematics.
One the one hand the author tries to give specific contents and he tries to make them accessible
to the reader. In order to mediate between this extremes, he adopts popularized formulas.
Intersemiotic and intralingual strategies, he uses punctuation, insertions of cartoons that
summarize the theorem. It is represented throw an image.  it’s a funny interlude in a text which
explains a theorem.
In the extract, which is a specialized text, we have signs of popularization. It is not specialized
enough. Is is between.
We find various cultural references (Sherlock Holmes): he exploits globalized reference, which are
cultured bound, but they have became also universal. He wants to exploit the recent knowledge of
the reader in order to add something new.
There are symbols which rend the text rather difficult to understand.
This book has been translated intersemiotically  very brought notion. We identify the source
text as composed of different extracts with the language of mathematics.
DOCUMENTARY
The visual aspects and the verbal aspects help to convey the meaning. There are several omission,
everything is much more popularized. The documentary addresses the mass. It tries to raise the
curiosity.

 Shifting and dramatics synthesis  we have condensations (aspects of Pitagora’s life and
when in the tv program there are references to the Greeks and their interest in ‘proof’).
There is a time constraint which is determined by the fact that the viewers need a break,
they don’t need to be to much concentrated.
It is entertaining and educational. In order to be effective, the documentary must be able
to tell notions but short enough to be appreciated.
Some elements have to be omitted and condensed.
In the book we are told that P. used to travel a lot. We have a description of his school,
which was a mystic school, something that has to do with religion. In the documentary,
both the narrator and the witness talk about a sect, which has a negative connotation. We
have a very important change in the pathemic isotopy. P. and his disciples come across
very differently in the documentary.
The visual and the audio of the documentary help to create a narrative. Throw these
cinematographic means some elements are changed and emphasized.
There is a story telling which is meant to raise the curiosity of the receiver.
The theorem in the documentary is on t-shirt given to tourists as souvenirs / in the film we
have tables.
 Faithful adaptation : correctness of the theorem, even though there is a very popular way
in order to represent it.
-The documentary follows what it is said in the book.
-The medium is different: in the book we have written text vs moving images.
-Narratology: the book has one author who narrates at the same level, we don’t have insertions. In
the documentary we have different narrators:

 Du Sautoy, who produces a much more subjective narrative, personal involvement.

 Various expert witnesses, who are impersonal to introduce extra information. They present
their selves as experts and they give a more specialist tone to the story telling. 2 nd degree
level introduced by the 1st degree (Du Sautoy)
 Voice over: which connects the various part, there is a detached tone which connects the
1st and 2nd degree.
We have a strong relation between the graphic/ visual and what the characters are saying
(verbal). Sometimes we have complementariness: one concludes and completes the other.
Both the texts and the documentary are precise in Pitagora’s theorem.
THE BIG BANG THEORY
Also in this tv series we find another representation of Pitagora’s theorem.
We have a mention of the theorem itself, we have only a definition. We have an actual quote of
the theorem. These notions are not explained because the main gold of situation comedies is to
elicits the laugher of the audience.
NUMB3RS
It is much more educational. The theorem is taken for granted. It is mentioned implicitly. There are
reference to spherical astronomy and implicitly to the theorem but we don’t have a real
explanation of this notions.
Tv series are part of the popularization science  incidental educational value. The educational
aspect is incidental.
All these products are part of the ESP effort. Obv these elements are adapted to the need of the
mass. The language is vaguely specific. These days the language is much more precise and
detailed. This incidental educational value has produced an evolution. Nowadays audio-visual
products use a much more precise language.
We always have at least one expert (instructor, teacher of the ESP) and the student (the non-
specialist)  actual educational setting.
The case of graphic art
One of the easiest examples are superheroes comics.  Superman and The Flash. At first the
creators of these superheroes had scientific ideas and they created superheroes that had some
consequences: they deal with gravity, speed, radioactivity…
The explanations of this superpowers is that they come from another planet. However, the
explanation became more and more scientific: what they could do refer to science.
In comics we have the representation of scientific notions. For example the Joule-Thomson effect
that we find in superman, with the freeze breath.
The more recent comics (Futurama), we have the discussion of more recent scientific notions: we
have a horse race and the professor loses and complaints because people were observing the race
with a telescope, (uncertainty principle) and they change the outcome of the race. We don’t have
any mention of it.
There are references also to the advances of science. (References to Newton, the uncertainty
principle..). also in this case we have specialize notions conveyed with popular instruments.
In Karma City too, we see how mechanics is exploited in order to create the universe represented
in the comics itself.
In the extract about futurama, we find Schrodinger’s experiment which suggests the existence of
multiple and simultaneous realities. We also find the idea of the speed of life. We have also the
refraction effect and a tribute to Marylin Monroe (intertextual reference). This cannot be
understood by everyone.
According to the age of the target, the scientific notions can change: there’s the popularization of
scientific notions also in ‘’Donald Duck’’ and ‘’Mickey Mouse’’  the selection of the corpus can
change according to the receivers, in this case there is a much younger audience.
The representation of these notions is much easier to understand.
The water cycle and the chemistry of water are introduced in a very funny way  educational
trends, in order to teach people how to respect.
In 2006, young readers were confronted with the story ‘’Mickey Mouse on the crime scene’’,
which alludes to CSI, presenting agents and scientists. It’s entertaining and educational at the
same time.
Comic series are entertaining and education, ‘’Flash facts’’ is mainly educational. Real connection
with receivers  it’s motivating, this shows how these notions play a part in everyone’s life.
In comics, we have a mentions of these elements but we don’t have any kind of explanation.
In graphic novels, we have an explanation.
For young adult readers, in ‘’genetics for beginners’’ we have references to genetics. Here we have
a narrative, an historical account about the discoveries made in a particular field with drawn
representations in order to make things clear and to lighten doubts.
In ‘Neurocomics’’, which is an artistic graphic novel, we have extracts, long captions and most of
the notions are clear thanks to the illustrations. We see how the author makes use of metaphors.
In this case, the brain is compared to a forest and neurons are depicted as trees and the
substances that interfere with neurotransmitters take the shape of monsters.

 LANGUAGE OF MEDICINE
It’s something independent.  it’s a peculiar science because it deals with human beings.
We have an infinity of branches
• Manuscripts submitted for publication.

• Journal articles: writings on a specific topic that detail background, methods, results, and conclusions;

• Editorials and letters to the editor: writings presenting thought-provoking alternative interpretations and
methodological insights

• Reviews articles: these focus on content. Their aim is to present a large amount of information on a
subject comprehensively and efficiently.

• Systematic Reviews: these start from a clinically relevant question and highlight this issue on the basis of
findings presented in various research articles.

• Research papers: investigations into a topic to obtain facts and theories.

• Case-reports: these are one of the few text genres in medical journals which tells a story.

• Case-series studies: descriptive studies that can provide data on the natural history of the disease or offer
experience to guide e health services.
• Case histories: these include information on how the patient’s condition was noticed and diagnosed, how
the condition has been treated, and how the patient responded to treatment.

• Reports: formal accounts of proceedings presented in detail.

• Abstracts: short pieces of writing that clearly summarize larger works; they cover procedures, results of
studies or experiments, and conclusions.

• Value-Added Abstracts: these summarize research articles or reviews written by someone other than the
writer of the abstract. They briefly introduce the aims, methods, findings, and include a comment and
assessment of the results and their clinical relevance

• Documents: original written or printed pages that provide evidence or information.

• Grant proposals: requests for a sum of money to research into special projects.

• Patient Information Leaflets (PILs): these are highly conventionalized directive texts aimed at giving
practical, objective instruction.

Monoreferenciality, lack of emotivity, denotation, precision, impersonality, transparency and

redundancy.
Transparency are linked to compounds  by analyzing each part, we understand the meaning of
the compound term. In medicine, prefixes and suffixes have a standardized meaning.
We have lots of catachresis: the meaning of a word is expanded in order to say something else.
Ellipsis: omission of an elements that can be understood by the context
Eponym
Toponym
-We find also metaphorical expressions between doctor and patient. They have a didactic function
and there are familiar reference in order to explain concepts. (The body is like a machine…).
-The metaphor can have also a catachretic function, when a metaphor fills gaps in a vocabulary.
-The theory-constitutive function because these metaphors are applied to phenomena that are
not known yet in order to structure them.
There’s also the use of blends, acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations

LEXICAL FEATURES

• Vocabulary of classic origin: from Latin (in vivo, in vitro, deficit, herpes simplex) or from Greek (phlebitis,
phlebothrombosis);

• vocabulary of Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) origin (blister, bruise, freckle, birthmark, chilblains)

• Neologisms: due to new discoveries or progress in the technology/research applied to medicine, very
often new words are created. They can appear at different levels, as newlycoined words, recently created
locutions, new collocations, compound nouns, new terminology, old words and locutions with new
meanings.

• Numerals

• Lexical density

26/04/2023
Medical humanities
People want to understand, in medical field, so there’s the need of a more comprehensible
language  the medical humanities is a response to this demand.
It’s a part of the plain English movement and focuses on medicine, which is a science with a
fundamental human aspect.
It’s a discipline which focuses on the relationship between specialists and the patients.
The main goal is to render language more accessible.  medical humanism is a salvific place
against the modern medicine: an excessive specialization, insensitivity to personal values,
insufficient attention to preventions. Patients fell ignored by their doctors.
It is a way to mediate the specialized communication between patients and doctors and improve
it.
The patient should be at the center. Patients demand a different attitude from doctors and
specialized figures.
This because medicine deals with human beings.  patient centered approach: the patient is not
only illness, (detached vision). What is required is empathy and the attention towards the
patient’s context and his psychological sphere. The patient is a person, and in order to have faith
in that doctor, they need to understand what’s going on.
This awareness helps from a psychological point of view.
Patients and doctors produce narratives and graphic narratives: they help patients to express their
emotions and help doctor to understand how patients feel. All these narratives (created by
patients) became very useful. By reading a novel, we adopt that ‘someone’ point of view and we
get to know a different way of experiencing the same world.
These products can adapt to different situations and everything is created in order to form not
only the highly specialized field, but also other qualities: friendliness, attention to the need of the
patients, sensibility.
This aspect of communication is fundamental: not only looking to numbers and data, but also to
listen to the patient.
The patient need to know that he has to expect.  we have a change, but we still have doctors
who don’t adopt the principles proposed by medical humanities within the communication field.
The medical humanities and the narratives play a fundamental role in this: the graphic products
from an artistic point of view express anxiety, illness.
‘’Monster calls’’ is a novel and it can be considered as medical narrative  we have images which
suggest the state of mind of the protagonist. The novel tells the story of Patrick, whose mother has
been diagnosed cancer. It is written by two people: the original idea was by the one who died for
cancer and then the project was taken up by another writer. The novel was conceived by a patient.
It's a young adult novel, and the presence of illustrations can be conceived as part of a graphic
pathography: this novel has been translated intersemiotically, so there’s the use of different media
 we can talk about filmic pathography.
Also horror fiction: there’s the mention of a monster. All the semantic fields exploited refer to that
aspect of monstrosity and horror traditions.  night-death
Fear  we find intertextual references to gothic traditions.
All the senses of the reader are triggered: the sense of the sight because the young protagonist
sees the monster, the sense of touch because of the hand slipping of the protagonist’s grasp.
There’s also the sense pf hearing when the monster talks.
The sense of olfaction is strongly related to nature.
Taste is the less stimulated sense.
Death-birth: the tree is born as a tree and it dies and reborn as a monster. (?)
He faces his emotions: it is a way to help people how they have to face these situations. This can
develop empathy in the reader.  it is a pathography which is supposed to help the reader and
the people which are affected by an illness.
In the initial part we see the horror. All these elements try to bring about this horrific feeling and
there’s the creation of a life.  this original contrast is expressed again and again.
the passages of the novel refer to the different emotions that Connor feels: this can help us
understand that it is a psychological novel for young adults. There are different stages of his
mom’s illness: at the end the monster is not that scary, he becomes an embodiment of Connor’s
emotions: it has symbolic values.  it is a way adopted by Connor in order to face with the
diagnosis of her mother.
At first, we simply see a gothic opening. We see everything from the outside.
The monster is useful because he brings Connor to face reality, not to scare him anymore.
In the end when the mother dies, he realizes that after this process of awareness thanks to the
monster, whatever the situation would be, he will be able to survive.
This novel is an example of narrative medicine: it helps the protagonist to come to terms with the
condition he has to face.
Also, the illustrations express Connor’s emotions. They helps processing all the phases Connor is
going throw.
The monster is a creation of Connor’s mind. In a way, this focus on death also makes this products
as examples of thanatology, the discipline which focuses on death from different point of views.
There’s of course the language of medicine for example throw the description of the hospital
room in which there’s Connor’s mother. in a way the novel can be considered one of the many
example of bibliotherapy resources: there’s the representation of situations that people have to
cope with in the ordinary life.
Connor creates the monster, and this relates to the fact that this scary fairytales can stimulate
readers to understand how what is reading can be very close with real experiences.
Magical thinking: Connor creates the monster in order to save his mother magically unconsciously.
But he must understand that this is not possible, the monster is only his own creation which helps
his to face the different phases of mourning.
METAPHORS: the emphasis is really on the psychological consequences  the novel borrows
elements from different disciplines. INTERDISCIPLINARITY which is typical of medical humanities.
The central role of the monster is cohesive (in the title).
In Italian we have ‘’sette minuti dopo la mezzanotte’’, which is when the monster appears every
night. By omitting the word ‘’monster’’ there is not the cohesion that we have in the original one.
There is no reference to the gothic tradition and the horror genre.
02/05/2023
Power in specialized/ medical language
For a very long time, specialized language was used in order to exercise some form of control on
other people.
Certain communities were genetically predisposed to be independent and superior (Social
Darwinist Ideas- the measurement of intelligence.  certain human beings were considered as
inferior. The scientific test was the pencil test: the tighter the hair’s natural grip, the darker the
classification and it was used during Apartheid.
Scientific language was used in order to construct people’s identity. Connection between science
and power can be observed throughout history. Very often science was exploited in order to
create the person to be researched and to be cured.
Christine Brooke-Rose’s ‘Out’
The novel is set in a future after an event that disrupted the entire geography of the world. 
issue of racism, not only in south Africa and also in Great Britain. Reversal between blacks and
whites…
Practical representation that make us conclude that identities are defined by the context in which
a person grows up and by the different points of view and also by the language of science.
Black people are represented with animalistic words as inferior to the colonizer.
Here we have a science fiction in the sense that is set in the future and the way in which doctors
act is the same as the way of our reality.
-Scientific language, the tone is impersonal. The narrator describes what happens. There’s
someone who observes throw scientific means. The tone deals a lot with science:
There’s the reference to the uncertainty principle: the way in which we observe can change the
reality that we are observing.
We have a connection between the plot and the language used: we have references to scientific
notions, for example the laws of thermodynamics in order to explain why the white population is
discriminated: the stereotype is that black men are supposed to steal women to white men, here
this stereotype is reversed. The language of physics is used to justify this discrimination.
Reference to sickness, creation of identities of actual people and their illness.
We have an exploitation of linguistic forms of the language of science.
We find lots of neologisms which are created throw the same procedures: ‘’oscillograph’’  is
used to record (and create) the waves produced by the psyche of an individual.
Then we have a reference to ‘psychoscopy’  object reading, magic. It’s used to record the way in
which the character is going to behave in the future. Although the language of science is very
used, science represents an unequal distribution of power. The author inserts many examples that
remind us of Nazism and fascism.
Attack on the way in which liberal people don’t do too much in order to change that society, trying
to justify themselves. This attitudes are identified as examples of the violence that a certain class
committed in relation to other people and to other sectors of society.
Reversal that brings us to scientific notions: these identities (us and them, I and other) are
constructions which are linguistically, socially and politically determined.
Within the text we have also references to ‘’entropy’’: the focal character became the example of
poetic language, so he poses himself against the language of science and medicine.
He is identified as insane, but his language is very metaphorical, so this figure becomes the
exemplification of the clash between scientific (precise, impersonal) and poetic language.
Poetry and poetic language is perceived as dangerous: this language gives different description of
reality  that’s the reason why the focal character is ostracized by society, throw his language us
able to change his identity. By doing that, he’s able to demonstrate that identity is a construction.
This is not because he’s mad, but because he uses scientific language in a different way,
metaphorically bringing it to extremes within the same system.
He is not crushed by this scientific language, he reacts, since he has lots of identities constructed
throw language he becomes a nobody.
Things which are meant to exercise power on people  the language of science is also strongly
connected to conventional weapons.
In this type of society, the language of science tries to obtain a predominant role above other
types of languages.
The focal characters on the contrary uses language in a very creative way: on the one hand he
seems mad, on the other hand he menages to oppose the system. He runs the risk of
discrimination but he menages to survive the system.
The certain knowledge doesn’t exist, everything is hypothetical.