What is it about?
Readers of popular science are treated as literary characters by the books' authors. What readers thinks and say becomes part of a popular science text. This makes a reader into a concrete character instead of a generalized representative of an audience. This technique is used as part of engaging the reader and also helps in explanations of scientific concepts.
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Why is it important?
Before, readers in the text were seen as generalized participants; now a reader becomes a specific entity.
Perspectives
I think this is an exciting development and can be used by popularizers to help make their texts more reader-friendly. This strategy is very easy to use.
OLga Pilkington
Dixie State University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The fictionalized reader in popular science: reader engagement with the scientific community, Text & Talk - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language Discourse Communication Studies, November 2018, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/text-2018-0022.
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