科普如何變成傳奇：從文本析論1990年代「科學文化」書系的語文傳播

How did Popular Science Become a Legend? On the linguistic communication of “Science Culture” book series in 1990s Taiwan from the approach of text analysis

本文探討 1990 年代間天下文化出版社的科普書系「科學文化」如何變成一則出版傳奇。這個出版傳奇的實現有賴於二個語文傳播策略：以選擇傳記型的科普書和文學性的修辭來 「引起興趣」，並以「傳奇化」的書名標題來「強化第一印 象」。本文使用質性的本文分析方法，透過分析「科學文化」 書系的出版資訊、導讀、內容等文字風格，輔以關鍵策畫人和主編的訪談，並與 1970-1990 年間的早期科普書系等作對照， 證明「科學文化」書系的成功在於上述兩個策略。

Commonwealth Publishing Co. in Taiwan has published a series of popular science books, named Science Culture, since 1991. This series has achieved great success in publication and in marketing and up to the present has published over 164 volumes and sold out a great number of hard copies. It is well regarded as a publication legend. How did it succeed? What strategies has it adopted to become such a legend? This paper shows that the series' success depends on two strategies: exciting subjects and strengthening the first impression. This research applies three related tactics or techniques publishing scientific biographies, literary rhetoric, and using romanticizing titles to realize two strategies of the series. This paper reveals these strategies and techniques by investigating the writing style of books in the series, comparing the titles of the series with other titles of popular science books before 1990, and conducting interviews with the editors of that series.