0 INTRODUCTION

4. RHETORIC AND THE WORLD OF SCIENCE IN THE EModE PERIOD
who narrated personal histories. When dealing with science, Overington (1977: 143-144)
proposes to change the conception of audience by that of “scientific community,” an idea
which is further developed in section 4.4.2.3 below.
4.4.2.2. Readership
As shown in section 4.4.2.1 above, the concept of audience is vague since it is just a
fiction created by the writer, that is, it is the kind of reader the writer expects will read his
work. In order to refer to the actual readers of a specific work, the term readership is
therefore more accurate (Pahta and Taavitsainen 2004: 15).
In the case of diachronic studies, it is difficult to determine the readership of a
particular work or set of works. However, there are some clues to build a picture of
events. As already noted, the number of readers increased dramatically in EModE, mainly
due to two different factors, namely, the growth in educational facilities and the
introduction of the printing press, which made books affordable for the middle classes
(see sections 4.4.1 and 4.2.2 above). This new middle class was interested in sciences, so
a new market for scientists gradually emerged. However, many writers were aware of the
fact that some of their possible readers were not very skilled in the task of reading, so
their way of writing was adapted to them by using a plain style that even simple readers
could understand (Bennett 1970: 82). Furthermore, writers knew that using foreign
languages as well as presenting information in large tomes might also be an obstacle
when addressing this type of readers. In order to avoid these kinds of problems, the titles
of medical books usually showed the type of readers they were intended for. Thus, apart
from books designed for professionals such as doctors or surgeons, there were also works
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