Investigating Adolescent Health Communication

A comprehensive corpus analysis of adolescent health communication is long overdue – and this book provides it. We know comparatively little about the language adolescents use to articulate their health concerns, and discourse analysis of their choices can shed light on their attitudes towards and beliefs about health and illness. This book interrogates a two million word corpus of messages posted by adolescents to an online health forum. It adopts a mixed method corpus approach to health communication, combining both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Analysis in this way gives voice to an age group whose subjective experiences of illness have often been marginalized or simply overlooked in favour of the concerns of older populations.

A comprehensive corpus analysis of adolescent health communication is long overdue – and this book provides it. We know comparatively little about the language adolescents use to articulate their health concerns, and discourse analysis of their choices can shed light on their attitudes towards and beliefs about health and illness. This book interrogates a two million word corpus of messages posted by adolescents to an online health forum. It adopts a mixed method corpus approach to health communication, combining both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Analysis in this way gives voice to an age group whose subjective experiences of illness have often been marginalized or simply overlooked in favour of the concerns of older populations.

Corpus Linguistics for Health Communication provides an accessible and practical introduction to the use of corpus linguistics methods to analyse health-related language use across various contexts and genres. Offering a critical review of the field, discussion of extended case studies, and practical exercises based on spoken, written, and digital language data, this book: introduces the fields of health communication and corpus linguistics and critically reviews cutting-edge studies in the burgeoning area of corpus-based health communication; describes the processes involved in planning a corpus linguistics study of health communication, including designing and building a corpus, selecting tools, and implementing techniques of analysis; demonstrates how corpus linguistics methods can – and have – been applied to the study of spoken, written, and digital health communication, offering critical reflections and suggesting areas for future development. Corpus Linguistics for Health Communication is essential reading for those working at the interface of corpus linguistics and health communication. Both those with a little or a lot of experience in either field will find value in its pages.

The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Approaches to Discourse Analysis highlights the diversity, breadth, and depth of corpus approaches to discourse analysis, compiling new and original research from notable scholars across the globe. Chapters showcase recent developments influenced by the exponential growth in linguistic computing, advances in corpus design and compilation, and the applications of sound quantitative and interpretive techniques in analyzing text and discourse patterns. Key discourse domains covered by 35 empirical chapters include: • Research contexts and methodological considerations; • Naturally occurring spoken, professional, and academic discourse; • Corpus approaches to conversational discourse, media discourse, and professional and academic writing. The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Approaches to Discourse Analysis is key reading for both experienced and novice researchers working at the intersection of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis, as well as anyone undertaking study in these areas, as well as anyone interested in related fields and adjacent research approaches.

**Shortlisted for the 2021 BAAL Book Prize for an outstanding book in the field of Applied Linguistics** Situated at the interface of corpus linguistics and health communication, Corpus, Discourse and Mental Health provides insights into the linguistic practices of members of three online support communities as they describe their experiences of living with and managing different mental health problems, including anorexia nervosa, depression and diabulimia. In examining contemporary health communication data, the book combines quantitative corpus linguistic methods with qualitative discourse analysis that draws upon recent theoretical insights from critical health sociology. Using this mixed-methods approach, the analysis identifies patterns and consistencies in the language used by people experiencing psychological distress and their role in realising varying representations of mental illness, diagnosis and treatment. Far from being neutral accounts of suffering and treating illness, corpus analysis illustrates that these interactions are suffused with moral and ideological tensions sufferers seek to collectively negotiate responsibility for the onset and treatment of recalcitrant mental health problems. Integrating corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis and health sociology, this book showcases the capacity of linguistic analysis for understanding mental health discourse as well as critically exploring the potential of corpus linguistics to offer an evidence-based approach to health communication research.

Mass Media and Health: Examining Media Impact on Individuals and the Health Environment covers media health influences from a variety of angles, including the impact on individual and public health, the intentionality of these effects, and the nature of the outcomes. Author Kim Walsh-Childers helps readers understand the influence that mass media has on an individual’s health beliefs and, in turn, their behaviors. She explains how public health policy can be affected, altering the environment in which a community’s members make choices, and discusses the unintentional health effects of mass media, examining them through the strategic lens of news framing and advocacy campaigns. Written for students across a variety of disciplines, Mass Media and Health will serve as primary reading for courses examining the broader view of mass media and health impacts, as well as providing supplemental reading for courses on health communication, public health campaigns, health journalism, and media effects.