Multidimensional Analysis: A Look at Involvement in Male and Female Nineteenth-Century History and Life Sciences Texts in the Coruña Corpus

Abstract

Female discourse has often been described as more personal, tentative, and narrative than male discourse, a view that has supported broader generalisations about women’s tendency to privilege cooperation and community through language. At the same time, research on scientific writing complicates this picture: studies of Late Modern women scientists show a markedly detached register and a preference for objectivity and impersonality, setting them apart from non-scientific female writers. Against this backdrop, the present study investigates variation in Late Modern English scientific discourse authored by men and women using Biber’s Multidimensional Analysis. Focusing on nineteenth-century history and life sciences texts from the Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing, the analysis examines involvement as captured by Dimension 1 (“Involved/persuasive vs. informational style”), with particular attention to the role of author sex, discipline, and genre in shaping subregister  differences.