GRAMMATICAL VARIATION OF POPULAR SCIENCE.

Abstract

Due to the growth of popular science, the interest in popular science texts has grown in many fields of studies, especially in English language learning. Popular science texts have received a great interest in English language learning and teaching because it is believed that popular science texts can serve as fruitful material. Popular science texts comprise content words related to science and grammatical words which are also essential for English langue learning. The purposes of this study is to identify types of grammatical words that are frequently used in popular science texts and to investigate a variation of grammatical words found among various sources of popular science texts. The data was retrieved from five sources (Wikinews, New Scientist, Science news, Nature, Wikipedia) with 100 texts from each sources and five subject areas (biology, earth, medicine, space, and technology), giving a total of 500 texts to analyze. The data was analyzed by AntConc program to reveal frequent words. The study found a variation of function words among different sources. The teaching implication is also discussed.