Accommodating Death

Scientists have strong motivations to communicate with the public, yet this communication is often ineffective, due to divisions of audience and discourse community, as well as the scientists biases against communicating with the public. Scientific accommodation helps to bridge this gap. In some fields, like forensic anthropology, scientists write their own accommodation. This analysis, unlike others, will include these accommodations and seeks to determine the role the author plays in accommodation. If the scientist is the accommodator, does the text still undergo the same changes? With a combination of Fahnestock s analysis of scientific communication, Latour and Woolgar s Statement Types, and Toulmin et al. s method of diagramming scientific arguments, this analysis examines the discourse of forensic anthropology to determine what effect the author and the accommodator (or author/accommodator), have on the text and how these changes relate to forensic anthropology as a discipline.

Autorentext

Christina D'Elia currently lectures at Clemson University. She received her M.A. in Professional Communication from Clemson University and graduated with a B.A. in anthropology and English from the University of Florida. She is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Her areas of research include medical and science communication and technical writing.