Emerging of the mineralogy discourse in Mexico (1795-1849): a taxonomy of objects, procedures, and instruments

Abstract

We carry out a documentary analysis of the texts on mineralogy produced in and about Mexico from 1750-1849. The objective was to extract the names of the objects, procedures, and instruments (OPI) used in the texts for teaching, research, or improving minerals’ production. OPIs names are considered as rhetorical regularities in the discursive structure of the mineralogy texts. Their identification and characterization in the texts were carried out employing a manual XML tagging differentiated by colors. The objects’ names, procedures, and instruments were identified and organized as taxonomical elements and differentiated according to their frequency. The texts were analyzed according to the objective, the social sector (teaching, research, production), and the argumentative style The analysis reveals the diversification of the rhetorical functions of OPIs in the content structure of the texts. It is an emergent argumentative style that presents the results through the relationship of facts between the IPOs. Thus, the reproducibility of the results function emerges as a qualitative novelty in scientific communication. Development of the taxonomies of OPIs led to representations of the early form of the discourse in Mexican mineralogy.