The Stylistic Changes In The Sentence Layer Of EST-Based On The Study Of Journal Of Applied Physics

Language actually is the storing of sound-image and vocabulary-image, and this storing should base on the accumulation of time and experiences. Thus any language would not stay still. With the passing of time, the language would alter gradually. EST (English for science and technology), as a kind of English language, is also developing and updating continuously. This change mainly focuses on the change of style. Therefore in order to make up the shortages of researches done by others, this paper aims to describe the stylistic changes of EST in the sentence layer completely and systematically. Through the statistics and analysis of the five measurable symbolic structures in the sentence layer of EST, which include: the sentence length, the relative frequency between the principle clause and subordinate clauses within a sentence, the frequency of ellipsis, the frequency of inversion and the frequency of subjunctives, we could finally describe the changes EST style is undergoing and could lead EST writers to a more updating mode of writing. This paper chooses an authoritative journal as the research subject, which names journal of applied physics from AIP, an authoritative journal data bank as well. The author chooses the first five papers of each single issue from this journal in year 1955 and year 2005. This paper adapts methods of statistics to calculate the frequencies and the related probabilities of each structure, and finally we got the results. EST style does undergo great changes. The sentences become shorter obviously and the complexity of complex sentences reduce to a great extent, including less subordinate clauses and seldom uses of subordinate clauses modified by other smaller subordinate clauses. Ellipsis, inversions and subjunctives appear more frequently than before, and EST papers tend to be more concise and vivid, and are easier for ordinary people to understand and accept.