Terminological variation in studies on scientific communication: analysis of terms used by professor-researchers from Brazilian universities

Abstract

The dissemination of scientific knowledge to society had a considerable growth in recent decades, but, especially in the context of covid-19 pandemic, scientific communication stood out significantly, stimulating scientists to engage in activities of this nature. There are, knowingly, other terms, in addition to divulgação científica to address the relationship between science and the non-specialized public (BUENO, 1985; ALBAGLI, 1996; CARIBÉ, 2015; VOGT; MORALES, 2018), which indicates the absence, among Brazilian theorists, of consensus on which term would be more appropriate (ROCHA; MASSARANI, 2017). It is understood that the terms must be studied from certain discursive situations, which leads this study to be based on the precepts of the Communicative Theory of Terminology (CABRÉ, 1999a). Thus, considering the role of universities in the promotion of scientific knowledge as well as the importance of terminology in the dissemination of scientific knowledge, the aim of this paper is to analyze the terms used by professor-researchers of Brazilian universities to conceptualize the communicative link with society. For the development of this analysis, scientific articles, published between the years of 2013 and 2018 were collected and retrieved by searching for divulgação científica in Google Scholar tool. As criteria, it was determined that the authors were professor-researchers of graduate courses, totaling 114 papers. By using WordSmith Tools, a survey of the most common terms, according to Caribé (2015), was conducted. The results suggest the preponderance of the term divulgação científica both as a keyword and throughout the paper, as a way of circumscribing studies in this field.