Intellectual attribution, a rhetorical dimension of scientific texts

Abstract

The intellectual attribution of scientific texts is associated to imperatives of science such as precision, reproducibility and legal responsibility, and constitutes a rhetorical dimension related to the ethos of the speaker, which –according to Aristotle (1999: 1356a, 13)– is almost “The strongest means of persuasion” of political discourses, although –as I intend to show– also affects the production of trust (pistis) in the recipient of the scientific text. In the analysis of this paper I consider, in a general way and based on linguistics, three forms of manifestation of intellectual attribution: 1) explicit attribution to a specific conceptualizer, 2) indirect or mitigated attribution to nonspecific conceptualizers, and 3) implicit attribution, through categorical assertions that expand the inferential possibilities about the source of the propositional content. Scientists use them to show their authorial stance and to gain authorial credibility by exploiting the reliability and authority that their readers attribute to the different enunciative sources. However, intellectual attribution rests not only on formal resources, but also on the expectations imposed by specific social practices. I also show how linguistics is a very useful tool that allows deepening the ethical dimension of rhetoric in scientific texts.