Online talk. October 12, 18:00 (Madrid time) / 17:00 (UK time)

Dr Gavin Brookes, University of Lancaster

This talk is part of the Corpus & applied linguistics research 2022 online event.

Free registration link.

Abstract

In this talk, I describe findings from a recently completed programme of research which combined corpus linguistics and critical approaches to discourse analysis in order to investigate how language is used to represent obesity in British newspapers. In particular, I will demonstrate how corpus linguistics techniques can be used to compare broadsheet and tabloid discourses around obesity, as well as to investigate how aspects of identity such as gender and social class intersect with such discourses in the specific representation of people with obesity. I will offer a critical appraisal of the corpus approach to critical discourse studies taken in this project, and briefly outline some of the ways we have set out to apply our findings to real world contexts of communication around obesity.

Gavin Brookes is UKRI Future Leader Fellow in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University. He is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics and co-editor of the Bloomsbury Corpus and Discourse book series. He has published five books and over thirty journal articles in the fields of corpus linguistics, applied linguistics, discourse studies and health communication.

You can check out the 2021 talks here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKjKIIQL6u1mXD2V9ZaT-_Q/featured

This online event is organized by the Universidad de Murcia and the E020-07 research group (Lenguajes de especialidad, corpus lingüísticos y lingüística inglesa aplicada a la ingeniería del conocimiento).