Gavin Brookes

Join the UCL Health Communication Network on March 17th for a talk by Dr Beth Malory: ‘British news media representations of the 2022 and 2024 mpox outbreaks: a corpus-assisted study’

More info and the link here: blogs.ucl.ac.uk/health-comms...

In the Manchester area and free this afternoon?

Join Prof. @michamahlberg.bsky.social for a lecture organised by @mcrlinguistics.bsky.social .

Find all the details and free tickets here:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/making-sen...

#digitalhumanities #language #stories #lecture #ManchesterCity

Metaphors and identities in online descriptions of the experience of pain | Communication & Medicine Abstract Becoming seriously and/or chronically ill can challenge and disrupt our sense of who we are in terms of our bodies, minds, and social roles. Although a substantial literature exists on metaphor and illness, the use of metaphor to represent identities has received little attention. This article focuses on similes as a particularly relevant manifestation of metaphoricity in language. An 8-million–word corpus of contributions to the Pain Concern online forum is investigated via a combination of corpus linguistic methods and in-depth qualitative analysis. We explore how contributors to the forum use similes to describe their own (changing) self-perceptions due to living with pain and its consequences. To this end, we introduce and demonstrate a multicomponent analytical framework, which, as we show, is equally applicable to the analysis of metaphorical expressions. The framework includes a consideration of source concept, type of identity, and viewpoint. With regard to our data, we show how similes are used to convey mostly unwelcome changes in the person's perception of themselves in physical, psychological, and/or social terms, potentially resulting in estrangement, low self-esteem, isolation, and disempowerment. More broadly, we suggest that our framework is applicable to the study of metaphorical representations of identities in the context of illness generally.

New paper just out in Communication & Medicine: 'Metaphors and identities in online descriptions of the experience of pain', with @kikiliu.bsky.social and Jane Demmen. It was a long time in the making for various reasons so we're particularly pleased to see it out! utppublishing.com/doi/10.3138/...

@lancslinguistics.bsky.social @sosslancaster.bsky.social

Representations of obesity in the news Written by Monika Bednarek and Gavin Brookes Note: This post was simultaneously published by the Sydney Corpus Lab and by the ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science at Lancaster Univer…

Check out this blog post, co-authored with Monika Bednarek @corpusling.bsky.social in which we reflect on our collaboration, between @corpussocialsci.bsky.social and the Sydney Corpus Lab, addressing obesity discourse in the UK and Australia >> sydneycorpuslab.com/representati...

Out now: 'Discursive Perspectives on Assisted Dying', chapter with David Wright in Handbook of Language and Death (eds. D. Galasiński & J. Ziólkowska). Author accepted version available #openaccess here: wp.lancs.ac.uk/public-disco.... @sosslancaster.bsky.social @lancslinguistics.bsky.social

octopus tentacles on a red background, writing: Influence, Manipulation and Seduction 3

#OctoConf3 news: we have a new poster aaaand 3 confirmed plenary speakers!
- Charlotte Taylor @proftaylor.bsky.social (Discourse and Persuasion, Uni Sussex)
- Massimiliano Demata (English Linguistics, University of Catania)
- Katarina Pettersson (Social Psychology, Uni Helsinki)

Out now: 'Dementia, Death and Discourse', chapter with @emma-putland.bsky.social in Handbook of Language and Death, ed. by @dgalasinski.bsky.social & Justyna Ziółkowska. See OA pre-print below, and make sure to look up the rest of the volume! @sosslancaster.bsky.social @lancslinguistics.bsky.social

Constructing Brexit Britain Combining corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, and a discourse analysis of narratives, this book considers one aspect of the Brexit process: the lan…

Still haven’t read Constructing Brexit Britain? There’s a 40% sale on the eBook on Bloomsbury’s website which means you can get it for just over £15!!

www.bloomsbury.com/uk/construct...

Sorry to hear that, Tamsin. Take care.

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships at Tampere University | Tampere universities Tampere University welcomes applicants to jointly prepare successful applications for the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship program. The program is targeted for researchers ...

Would you like to apply for the Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships at Tampere University with me as your PI and join our masterclass to prepare your app? Get in touch with me (or another prospective supervisor from @pluraltampere.bsky.social) by 27.4.

www.tuni.fi/en/research/...

📢New article out!
🟦 @shayuze.bsky.social & @gavinbrookes.bsky.social study user's stance and multimodal irony.
🟦They analyse comments on X to the UK's NHS Covid-19 policy posts.
🟦They prove the mediating role of affordances & offer a replicable method.
🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Capitalism. Because preventing illness just isn't profitable anymore.

PM asks Sir Jim Ratcliffe to apologise for saying UK 'colonised by immigrants' Sir Keir Starmer says comments by the businessman and Manchester United co-owner are

Obviously zero reflection in any of this on how operating the largest empire in human history may have turned us into a multicultural nation. We are here because you were there. #Empireland

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Ratcliffe is, quite obviously, factually, morally & intellectually wrong about immigration. But his racist comments will be 'both-sided' everywhere because people who simply don't like seeing non-white faces aren't ashamed to say so anymore.

@pubdiscdementia.bsky.social @lancslinguistics.bsky.social @sosslancaster.bsky.social

Out now: 'Critical Discourse Studies and Health Communication'. Chapter in Handbook on Critical Discourse Studies, ed. by B. Forchtner and F. Zappettini. Honoured to publish in this book alongside many whose work has inspired me. Chapter pre-print #openaccess here: wp.lancs.ac.uk/public-disco...

Spotlight: May O. Lwin (February 2026) In this second Spotlight video of the series, Dr Gavin Brookes (Lancaster University) talks with Professor May O. Lwin, who is a Professor in the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information…

Interested in what different members of the International Consortium for Communication in Health Care (IC4CH) are working on?

Today we're putting the spotlight on Professor May O. Lwin (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore):
ic4ch.wordpress.com/2026/02/11/s...

Great to see this out & happy to have an article with @perez-paredes.bsky.social in it on public-oriented research communication. Huge thanks to @shelleystaples.bsky.social, @gavinbrookes.bsky.social & the reviewers for feedback throughout the process. Link to our paper here: doi.org/10.1075/rs.2...

Building the avatar Therapy Dialogues Corpus: the process of constructing a longitudinal corpus of three-way psychotherapeutic interactions | Corpora avatar therapy is an innovative form of relational therapy for the treatment of distressing auditory verbal hallucinations, or voice-hearing, targeted at reducing voice-related distress. avatar therap...

A little late, but worth sharing - our paper 'Building the AVATAR Corpus' was published in December.

I feel genuinely lucky to have had the chance to contribute to this project, and to have collaborated with such an inspiring group of co-authors.

Excited to see how this resource is applied!

Applications of Corpus Linguistics by Gavin Brookes, Niall Curry and Robbie Love
With case studies from diverse contexts, this book shows and critically reflects on applications of corpus linguistics research and methods.
📚 https://cup.org/3NZeaTI

@lancslinguistics.bsky.social @sosslancaster.bsky.social

Out now! Special issue of @registerstudies.bsky.social, edited with @shelleystaples.bsky.social on Register and Professional Discourse. Papers address register in a range of contexts, inc. architecture, business, higher education, journalism, legal practice & virtual workspaces. Read more below!

Out now: 'Multimodal irony in public responses to digitally mediated NHS COVID-19 messages' - article with @shayuze.bsky.social in Discourse, Context & Media. You can read it #openaccess through the link below. @sosslancaster.bsky.social @lancslinguistics.bsky.social

Multimodal irony in public responses to digitally mediated NHS COVID-19 messaging This study investigates how multimodal irony is discursively constructed in the expression of stance and evaluation in comments responding to the UK N…

I am genuinely so happy to announce that my latest article, co-authored with my PhD supervisor, @gavinbrookes.bsky.social, has now been published in Discourse, Context & Media 🎉🎉

The project was such a joy to work on! Check it out: 👇
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The next octopus conference is coming to town 🐙

“Influence, Manipulation, Seduction” 3d edition at Tampere Uni, co-organised with @sofiaruediger.bsky.social and @domini.bsky.social - this time it is face to face!

Send us your persuasive abstracts by July 1
🐦🐦
events.tuni.fi/persuasion20...

Registration for this year's Corpora and Discourse conference, at Lancaster University, is now live!

Very happy to see our chapter out in the Oxford Handbook of Expressivity (Eds. Daniel Gutzmann & Katharina Turgay)! @niallrcurry.bsky.social, Emily Sharp, @gavinbrookes.bsky.social, @tonymcenery.bsky.social, and I discuss corpus approaches to analyzing expressivity.

Out now: 'What is good care, and who is it good for? A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of UK care home websites'. Chapter led by @emma-putland.bsky.social with Kevin Harvey in the Handbook on Critical Discourse Studies: www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/han.... Accepted version in original post below!

The deadline for TaLC2026 has been extended to February 22nd. If you're working on language education, technology, & corpus linguistics, come along! This year focuses on AI & corpus linguistics and I'm excited to be among the plenary speakers! See below for details on location & abstract submission!