New chapter with the 'Questioning Vaccination Discourse' team: 'Anti-vaccination discourse in Victorian England: Key Semantic Domains and Parallels with Present-Day Anti-Vaccination Arguments'. Part of a fascinating volume on historical medical discourse. www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi...

New openaccess paper in Digital Health with Anna Cermakova et al.: "In my experience …": The use of the word "experience" in peer online forums for mental health. The study is part of the NIHR-funded project 'Improving Peer Online Forums', led by Fiona Lobban: www.lancaster.ac.uk/health-and-m...

A guide to corpus-based approaches to health communication Applying Corpus Linguistics to Illness and Healthcare by @elenasemino.bsky.social @paulari.bsky.social @lukeccollins.bsky.social & @tonymcenery.bsky.social, Out Now & #OpenAccess #Linguistics #LangSky 🐦🐦 https://cup.org/4nXkIiq

New article by @lukeccollins.bsky.social & @elenasemino.bsky.social exploring patterns in reports of disability experience jcads.cardiffuniversitypress.org/articles/10....

Our book 'Applying Corpus Linguistics to Illness and Healthcare' is out open access! We wrote it to share what we learnt in many years of research in @corpussocialsci.bsky.social, on topics such as communication about anxiety, dementia, cancer, obesity and vaccines. cambridgeblog.org/2025/08/appl...

Congratulations to my colleagues @elenasemino.bsky.social @chrishartlinguist.bsky.social @vaclavbrezina.bsky.social @juditkormos.bsky.social @jculpeper.bsky.social @paulari.bsky.social Alison Mackey & Jason Rothman for being in the Stanford/Elsevier top 2% of scientists list. I’m in good company!

In conversation with @elenasemino.bsky.social on #CorpusMOOC #healthcare #corpuslinguistics #communication 👉Find out more: edx.org/learn/social... @corpussocialsci.bsky.social

We have lots of great Linguistics-related activities for our @lancslinguistics.bsky.social Open Day visitors today.

Thank you to all contributors to this @corpussocialsci.bsky.social event: two days of thought-provoking presentations on different issues in health communication, using different methodologies and with data from Europe, Africa, Asia and the US. See you all at the next @ic4ch.bsky.social event!

🎙️ Elena Semino, Distinguished Professor of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University joins host Dr. Joe Bianco to discuss the subtle and surprising ways that language 🗣️ and humor 😂 shape health experiences 💙.

Just received the final proofs of this book, based on @corpussocialsci.bsky.social research on health communication. It will be out *open access* later this year. @paulari.bsky.social @gavinbrookes.bsky.social @lukeccollins.bsky.social @tonymcenery.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/core/books/a...

📢 Free Webinar Corpus Linguistics: Skills for the Future Join @elenasemino.bsky.social & @danagablas.bsky.social as they explore how corpus methods shape healthcare communication & GenAI in language learning. 📆 22 July 2025 | 2–3pm UK time 🔗 Register free: forms.office.com/e/uppRBrE5AF

International Pragmatics Conference just kicking off at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. Always a great opportunity to pick up conversations with so many friends and colleagues as if no time had passed since we last met.

One of my favourite events of the year. Our corpus summer schools participants are the best audience one can ever hope for #LancsSS25

✅Registration has opened for #LancsSS25! Tag us in your pictures of the week ahead!

New short paper out in Public Health: 'A jab is not a vaccine; it's a 'shot' www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Looking forward to speaking on metaphors and vaccines (online) twice in the next 2 days: - International Conference of the Faculty of Linguistics and Ukrainian Association of Cognitive Linguistics and Poetics uaclipconf.com.ua - Semmelweis Medical Linguistics Conference semmelweis.hu/szaknyelv/en...

Just out in the BMJ: www.bmj.com/content/389/... - a (supportive) response to Samantha Vanderslott's piece 'Confronting the shortcomings of covid-19 vaccination will help us in future pandemics', based on our earlier paper on a new form of vaccine scepticism: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

📬Registration is now open for the 5th Symposium of the International Consortium for Communication in Health Care (IC4CH)! 📆When: 11-12 September 2025 📍At: Lancaster University, UK For more event information (registration, programme, speakers, abstracts, etc.) see ic4ch.wordpress.com/activities/

Grateful to Linguistics at Georgetown for inviting me to give a talk but it looks like they arranged for Lancaster weather for my visit

We are excited to be at Campus in the City this week! ❗️Come and see a wide range of activities, from a language escape game to ultrasound imaging of the tongue during beatboxing! ➡️ Fri 11 April at More Music in Morecambe #sparkyourcuriosity #CITC2025

Happy 5th-anniversary #ReframeCovid initiative! People collaboratively compiled non-belic metaphors to frame the pandemic. But how do they *really* impact our decision-making? @iraideia.bsky.social & I have just published a study on this - here's a thread with the results if you only have 5 mins:

I am deeply grateful to Aalborg University for a doctorate honoris causa and wonderful hospitality this week. Looking forward to collaborations with the Communication, Language and Discourse Research Group.

I have written a piece for @theconversationuk.bsky.social about our study on a new form of vaccine scepticism: people questioning the status of some vaccines as vaccines, starting during the pandemic theconversation.com/its-not-a-va... @lancslinguistics.bsky.social @corpussocialsci.bsky.social

Super-excited for our upcoming workshops: in person this Friday 21/3 @lancslinguistics.bsky.social and online on Tuesday 25/3. Plenaries by @elenasemino.bsky.social & @fmfederici.bsky.social + wonderful presentations! Please join us baalhealthsci.wordpress.com/2025/02/04/2...

We are delighted to have been ranked 3rd in the world for Linguistics by the QS World Subject Rankings 2025! 🔗 www.topuniversities.com/university-s... 🔗 www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/lancast...

REF2029: concerns about the implications of decoupling | The English Association : Please read this important joint letter we have written (on behalf of us, our chair @jennyrichards.bsky.social ) along with @ies-sas.bsky.social & @univeng.bsky.social englishassociation.ac.uk/ref2029-conc...

New paper from Questioning Vaccination Discourse project (Quo VaDis www.lancaster.ac.uk/vaccination-... ) in Vaccine X: "It's a shot, not a vaccine like MMR": A new type of vaccine-specific scepticism on Twitter/X during the COVID-19 pandemic. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It seems like as good a day as any to repost links to the five metaphor-based animations we created - based on this paper journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... - about the importance of #vaccines. @sflusberg.bsky.social First one: A castle metaphor for how vaccines work youtu.be/DOD854panQg?...

Scientists of the world, this is happening on our watch and we need to face it down. Evidence-based medicine weaponised for overtly ideological purposes. We do not need randomised trials of 'vaccine' versus 'no vaccine' when those vaccines have *already* been shown to be safe & effective. #episky 🧪

Funded PhD opportunity at Lancaster: 'The sharing of personal lived experience by peer support workers working in mental health services in NHS, social care and third sector organisations.' Open to applicants with a background in Linguistics as well as Psychology www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Thrilled to see the first publication from the Autism in Affinity Spaces (with @nelya-kot.bsky.social and @martinevandriel.bsky.social) now in print with Applied Linguistics: academic.oup.com/applij/advan...

Quite a linguistic Radio 4 Today programne this morning, featuring whalesong and human language plus Ollie Alexander and my colleague @paulari.bsky.social talking (about) #Polari. Nice 🙂

My study of pointing gestures in the spoken performance of Trump has been picked by @psypost.bsky.social. You can read Eric Dolan's excellent piece on the research here: www.psypost.org/the-power-of...

New open access paper by Questioning Vaccination Discourse (Quo VaDis) project team (www.lancaster.ac.uk/vaccination-...) on expressions of #vaccine #indecision on a parenting forum. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I always say that every project needs a linguist. Today I'm the linguist at the launch of the EU-funded PROACT-EU RESPONSE project in Paris - on pandemic preparedness in Europe. Lancaster's role is to study attitudes towards clinical trials via corpus methods. www.eu-patient.eu/projects/ong...

Save the date! On 11-12 September 2025, we are hosting the 5th Symposium of the International Consortium for Communication in Health Care (IC4CH) at Lancaster University. We hope you will join us! For more information, see ic4ch.wordpress.com/activities/

We are delighted to announce that the applications for the free Lancaster Summer Schools in Corpus Linguistics 2025 are now open! Join us this summer at @lancasteruni.bsky.social to learn more about corpora and their applications. 16-20 June 2025 More information: wp.lancs.ac.uk/corpussummer...

Lots of comments today on the language used in the UK government's AI announcement. A quick Word Sketch of 'unleash' in the Oxford English Corpus shows that it has a negative semantic prosody, i.e. that most of the things that are 'unleashed' are bad. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I wrote this before Christmas for the @engmediacentre.bsky.social blog. If you're looking to recruit students to the A Level next year or after, there are some useful (free) resources flagged up that are worth sharing: www.englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/promoti...

Science affords us the luxury of forgetting the impact of infectious diseases - In the 1st half of the 19th century 40-50% of children in US did not make it past the age of 5 - TB killed 1 in 7 people in US and Europe - smallpox killed 80% of infected children theconversation.com/infectious-d...

Lunchtime walk to see Lancaster in the winter sunshine

REACHE is recruiting new members! If you are a refugee or asylum seeking doctor or nurse in the UK and think you could benefit from our support to gain the required qualifications to join the NHS workforce, please contact us at [email protected]

I really enjoyed doing a session for REACHE at Salford Royal Hospital this morning. They provide free language and clinical training for refugee and asylum-seeker health professionals who aim to work in the NHS: www.reache.org.uk

#Humanities aren’t just for majors — #STEM students gain critical thinking and interpersonal skills too. An English professor explains the benefits: https://buff.ly/4iGenG9 (Anna Mae Duane @uconn.bsky.social) #loneliness #edusky

Meaningful #vaccine conversations require more than giving facts; they involve understanding the values shaping individuals' beliefs. Acknowledging these ‘moral foundations’ can foster trust and open dialogue, leading to more productive discussions. Our piece is in @us.theconversation.com

This Guardian article on shocking delays in diagnosing the causes of gynaecological pain remind me of the work done on endometriosis pain by linguists like Stella Bullo, Elizabeth El Refaie and colleagues, e.g.: www.frontiersin.org/journals/glo... and www.cardiff.ac.uk/__data/asset...

Save the date: We are excited to announce that the next Lancaster Summer Schools in Corpus Linguistics will be held 16-20 June 2025 at Lancaster University. Check our website for more info about programme & applications: wp.lancs.ac.uk/corpussummer... @lancslinguistics.bsky.social

Really interesting article by Schmid and Roehr-Brackin in Applied Linguistics on foreign language effect in reactions to information about vaccines. academic.oup.com/applij/advan...

We have been warning about this for years. There is so much evidence of what the humanities bring to the economy and society. See @englishassociation.bsky.social @ies-sas.bsky.social @univeng.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/education/20...