Using an Italian diachronic corpus for investigating the "core" patterns of the language of science

Using a small diachronic corpus of Italian texts in the specialized subject field of dermatology (esp. acne) published over a 60-year time span, the chapter aims to test the true extent of the influence of scientific English on its Italian counterpart at the levels of the structure of clauses and sentences, choices realizing the Theme, nominalization and cohesive devices of conjunction. The actual increase over time of all such patterns which is found in the Italian texts could indeed be correlated to the influence of the norms and conventions of scientific English on the practices and the discourse of the Italian scientific community. A more general conclusion is that the influence of scientific English can be considered as the construction of an increasingly technical and abstract scientific discourse across different languages, enacting today’s broad consensus about what constitutes scientific practice.