Genreutveckling i vetenskaplig prosa

The purpose of this article – Genre development in scientific prose. Clas Bjerkander’s entomological findings in the Transactions of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1775–1795 – is to analyze the early (natural) scientific genre development in Sweden during the 18th century, focusing on the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and its Transactions, as a discursive community. The Transactions are considered an early example of what we now refer to as sakprosa but have never been thoroughly analyzed regarding its genre specific characteristics. Bjerkander’s 26 findings on entomology are chosen as material for this study, grounded in genre analysis (Swales 1990, 2004; Bhatia 2004). Theresults reveal that Bjerkander’s entomological findings evolve into three subgenres. From a genre development perspective, Bjerkander’s texts primarily reflect an establishing stage (Gunnarsson 2011), but they anticipate a specialized stage in three instances: Bjerkander’s use of the so-called CARS model, his methodological awareness, and his use of references to previous research.