Literary Genres and the Construction of Knowledge in Biology: Semantic Shifts and Scientific Change

Abstract

Experimental papers (`primary literature') in biology are generally considered as the key scientific texts that allow the construction of knowledge claims, whereas it is held that review papers (`secondary literature') play a role in `synthesizing' the knowledge claims made in experimental papers, rather than in making new claims. This paper analyzes the literary strategy used by a biologist in order to make a new knowledge claim. As a worker in the field of intermediary metabolism, he succeeded in making an unexpected observation meaningful to endocrinologists by using their language, instead of his own disciplinary language. More generally, the paper argues that review papers afford the best opportunity for constructing new knowledge claims, because they do not have to conform to a routinely standardized structure, and allow a wider semantic repertoire than do experimental reports.