Inductive and deductive strategies of cognition process in the academic discourse

The paper deals with the functioning of epistemic situation as a unit of meaning in the academic text in terms of correlation of these units with the main strategies of a cognitive process: inductive and deductive. The epistemic situation includes three interrelated components - ontological, methodological, and axiological. The ontological component is based on scientific knowledge, which represents the content of the academic text. The methodological component unites the methods, ways and techniques of acquiring knowledge; and the axiological component is implemented through various language means, which express the assessment of knowledge received by predecessors or by the text’s author. We emphasize that the meaning structure of the academic text has a systematic nature, and its functioning and development are determined by the contradictions between “old” and “new” knowledge, with the text aimed at unfolding the latter one. The paper introduces a statement that text and speech units as text fragments have a circular logical structure formed by alternating inductive and deductive assumptions. This statement is illustrated using modern theoretical texts by prominent Russian linguists. Moreover, the findings are used when analyzing the translated texts of the academic discourse from French into Russian based on the concept of translation space as a synergetic translation model. Studying the meaning structure lets reveal that its content corresponds to the term system shaping the ontological aspect of knowledge. On the other hand, terms are subordinate to the methodological aspect forming the so-called “protection shield” of the ontological essence of the content. But cohesive meaning units - epistemic situations - may only arise when the axiological aspect is explicitly presented, in particular, when the text is characterized by novelty, argumentativeness, accuracy and significance for the academic community, which reflects the author’s discourse individual features.