Scientific English
Your teacher -
Bor-ming JAHN
江博明
Graduated from NTU-Geology in 1963 (BSc.)
Left Taiwan for the U.S. in 1965
Returned to Taiwan from France in 2003
MSc - Brown U; Ph.D. - U of Minnesota
Post-doctoral research - NASA-Johnson Space Center
& Lunar Science Institute, Houston (≈ 4 years)
Associate & full professor at Université de Rennes,
France, for 27 years.
Written ≈ 150 articles (only 1 in French & 0 in Chinese)
Present post -
Chair professor
First semestre (17 September – 13 January, 2003) Every Tuesday – 14h30 to 16h20
(session of 2 hours per week, for 17 weeks)
A total of 17 sessions (34 hours) of course and practical work
Structure of the course :
(a) Introduction (1 session)
Purposes: to improve your skill of English expression - in scientific reading and writing
- in oral communication
Analysis of common Chinese problems in English expression - in pronunciation
- common errors
(b) Writing a scientific or technical report (1 sessions) Basic grammar for good style
Contents - 2
(c) Minimum vocabulary in earth sciences (5 sessions) « Earthquakes » as a textbook - to increase your
vocabulary and get familiar with terms in earth sciences.
(d) Practical sessions
- Writing a scientific report (3 sessions)
- Writing a CV and reading ads or publicities (1 sessions) - Audio laboratory exercises (CNN listening or BBC World
News; 2 sessions)
- Analysis of science reports in Newsweek or Time magazines (2 sessions)
The contents might be modified as time goes
Quiz (3 times; the duration of each not determined) Mid-term examination
Introduction - 1
Purposes: to improve your skill of English expression - in scientific reading and writing
- in oral communication
It is surely axiomatic that the aim of scientific or technical writing is to transmit information accurately, quickly and economically from one person to another. But why do so many scientists and engineers make their writing so heavly unreadable?
Obviously, their subject matter is sometimes complex and conceptually difficult; but frequently the « unreadability » stems from use of a style that makes the reader’s task much heavier than it need be.
Introduction - 2
Analysis of common Chinese problems in English expression - in pronunciation
§ Accent and pronunciation (correct spelling?)
(a) English pronunciation = no easy rules; Let's see just a few examples: ow : we bow before the king; you wear a bow-tie; a bowl of rice; bowling
cow, a queen dowager, how, low, now, know-how.
ou : loud, have a bout with someone, cough-couch, double, doubt, mouse. au : author, caught, caution, daughter, fault, gauge, laugh, taught, draught
(= draft beer).
o : move, woman, women, hot, top, ton, tone, gone, tomb, tome, bomb h : hand, hear, hint, horn, hurt, hungry-angry, (muet): hour
ch-sh : English, not Englich
talk-walk, work-walk; word-world; pseudo, psychology-psychiatry idea, determine, olivine; folk-fork
indicted war criminals; receive, reception, receipt
short debts make long friends; deeply indebted to you for... iron, iron oxide; ion, cation, anion
(b) « Chinese » problems in English oral expression:
- Placement of accent (sometimes, but not so often as the French) - Frequent cut-off of vowels (most severe for the Chinese)
- mixing of « l » and « r » (terrible for the Chinese and even worse for the Japanese)
Ex.,
Accent: interpret-interpretation, contribute-contribution, image-imagine, attribute (v in second, n in first)-attribution, even-event,…
Mixing of « l » and « r »: Clinton, clay minerals, plate tectonics, flattening, apply-application, flesh-fresh, player-prayer, class-classic
(Japanese: I rike to show, I rike to eat lice, …)
Difficult sounds: thickening (sickening), 3 (tree, free, three)
Vowel cut-off: icetop (isotope), ecgite (eclogite), omfcite (omphacite), aptite (appetite, apatite, uptight)
Consonant cut-off (Cantonese style): not at all, good luck, quartz
Suggested references
1. Kirkman, John, Good style writing for
science and technology. E & FN Spon,
London, 221 pp. (ISBN 0 419 17190 8)
2. Yang Jen Tsi, An outline of scientific
writing. World Scientific, Singapore,
New Jersey, london, Hong Kong, 160
pp. (ISBN 9810224664, pbk)
3. CNN Listening. Live ABC
FUNNY ENGLISH NOTICES AROUND THE WORLD!
Here are some signs and notices written in English that were discovered throughout the world.
Don’t be shy, we all make
mistakes!
In a Tokyo Hotel:
Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such thing is please not to read notis.
In a Bucharest hotel lobby:
The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
In a Leipzig elevator:
Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.
In a Belgrade hotel elevator:
To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.
In a Paris hotel elevator:
Please leave your values at the front desk.
In a hotel in Athens:
Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.
In a Yugoslavian hotel:
The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.
In a Japanese hotel:
You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a
Russian Orthodox monastery:
You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.
In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers:
Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
On the menu of a Polish hotel:
Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted
duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.
Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop:
Ladies may have a fit upstairs.
In a Bangkok dry cleaner's:
Drop your trousers here for best results.
Outside a Paris dress shop:
Dresses for street walking.
From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner:
Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.
In a Rhodes tailor shop:
Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.
A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest:
It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men
and women, live together in one tent unless they are
married with each other for that purpose.
In a Zurich hotel:
Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.
In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist:
In a Rome laundry:
Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.
In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency:
Take one of our horse-driven city tours - we guarantee no miscarriages.
Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand:
Would you like to ride on your own ass?
In a Swiss mountain inn:
Special today -- no ice cream.
In a Bangkok temple:
It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.
In a Tokyo bar:
Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.
In a Copenhagen airline ticket office:
We take your bags and send them in all directions.
Two signs from a Majorcan shop entrance:
- English well talking.
- Here speeching American.
In a Norwegian cocktail lounge:
Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.
In a Budapest zoo:
Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.
In the office of a Roman doctor:
Specialist in women and other diseases.
In a Tokyo shop:
Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.
From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo:
When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.
CNRS-INSU excursion guide, December 1996:
Two nights in hotels are reserved with two persons per room. Mating will be done on site.
