ABSTRACT
In Chapter 6, we outlined a bi-level system of approaching genre that included a short series of questions to aid in determining the type of the source text under consideration. One of the three basic text types given under level two of our system is academic and scientific texts. These texts are often very specific in terms of the author’s goals (making a contribution to a body of research-based knowledge in a particular discipline or field), the target audience (scholars and scientists who have training in the discipline), the content of the article, and the context in which the research appears (peer-review journal or book). In addition to these factors, the code itself becomes a special register that is intimately connected with the field or discipline about which the ST is written. As a result, a new element of difficulty arises in the translation process: while the text may be grammatically straight-forward, the lexical and discourse levels of the text may be enormously difficult.
