Professor Elena Semino
ProfessorCurrent Teaching
LING 102: English Language
LING 210: Stylistics
LING 439: Cognitive Linguistics
LING 450: Stylistics
LING 517: Stylistics
Career Details
Director of the ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science.
Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Fuzhou University, China.Fellow of the RSA and the Academy of Social Sciences.
Associate Editor of the journal Metaphor and Symbol.
Former Head of the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster: 2011-14 and 2015-18.
Research Overview
My research interests are in health communication, medical humanities, stylistics, and metaphor theory and analysis. In my work I combine qualitative analysis with corpus linguistic methods.
Health communication/medical humanities: representations of autism and mental illness in fictional and non-fictional narratives; metaphor, cancer and the end of life; (figurative) language, creativity and chronic pain; metaphors for Covid-19; discourses around vaccinations.
Stylistics: cognitive stylistics; corpus stylistics; mind style in fiction.
Metaphor theory and analysis: metaphor in literature, politics, science, health communication, end-of-life care; metaphor and embodied simulation; corpus approaches to the study of metaphor.
Research Interests
I have a long-standing interest in first-person accounts of the experiences of autism and mental illness in fictional and non-fictional narratives. I am involved in a study of mind style in an autobiographical narrative of schizophrenia with Dr ZsófiaDemjén (University College London). I am a collaborator on the Language of Voice-hearing project at University College London, and Principal Investigator on the corpus-based interdisciplinary project Narratives of Voice-hearing– a collaboration between the ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science (CASS) and Hearing the Voice at Durham University. Through CASS, I am a member of the International Consortium for Communication in Health Care.
I collaborate with Prof Joanna Zakrzewska (Eastman Dental Hospital, London) on a corpus-based study of language and the diagnosis of chronic pain. I am part of the interdisciplinary project Pain: Speaking the Threshold at University College London.
From 2012 to 2014, I led a team working on Metaphor, Cancer and the End of Life, with funding from the ESRC. I act as advisor on the project Metaphor in Palliative Cancer Care at Linnaeus University (Sweden).
I am a Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded project Translating Science for Young People and on the ESRC-funded project Linguistic Challenges of the Transition between Primary and Secondary School – both led by Prof Alice Deignan in the School of Education at the University of Leeds.
I am Principal Investigator on the ESRC-funded project: 'Questioning Vaccination Discourse: A Corpus-based Study' (Quo VaDis).
PhD Supervision Interests
Metaphor in discourse: study of metaphor in literature, politics, science and health communication; corpus-based approaches to the study of metaphor. Health communication/Medical Humanities: language use in communication about health and illness, including particularly metaphors and narratives. Cognitive stylistics: integration of linguistic analysis with theories of cognition (e.g. Schema theory, Blending theory) in order to study literary texts; the linguistic construction of fictional text worlds; the linguistic construction of minds in fictional and non-fictional narratives. Corpus stylistics: application of corpus methods to the study of literary texts.
DSI: Horizon Europe: 4D PICTURE: Design-based Data-Driven Decision-support Tools: Producing Improved Cancer Outcomes Through User- Centred Research
01/10/2022 → 30/09/2027
Research
A discourse analysis on public attitudes to rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO)
01/09/2022 → 30/09/2022
Research
DDPO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS PROJECT
01/07/2022 → 16/02/2023
Research
The Future of Human Reproduction: new agendas and methods for the Humanities and Social Sciences
22/04/2022 → 22/07/2025
Research
Interventions for better life-time mental health outcomes for young Australians (15-24 years) with
01/04/2022 → 31/03/2027
Research
DSI: Realist evaluation of online mental health communities to improve policy and practice
01/03/2022 → 31/12/2024
Research
Representations of ‘heart failure’ in English discourse
15/11/2021 → 20/12/2021
Research
Questioning Vaccination Discourse (Quo VaDis): A corpus-based study
01/03/2021 → 30/06/2024
Research
Social media discourse analysis – attitudes to young people’s mental health
01/02/2021 → 30/04/2021
Research
Corpus Analysis of Sellafield Employee Forum and Interviews
18/01/2021 → 31/03/2021
Research
Representations of 'race', racism and race equality in the UK press
10/02/2020 → 15/04/2020
Research
Representations of Social Care in the Politicians’ and General Public’s Discourse
15/11/2019 → 31/01/2020
Research
Representations of Social Care in the UK press: A Computer-aided Linguistic Study
01/05/2019 → 31/08/2019
Research
The psychological validity of non-adjacent collocations: Evidence from event-related brain potentials
01/04/2019 → 31/03/2020
Research
Linguistic challenges of the transition from primary to secondary school
01/09/2018 → 30/04/2021
Research
CASS ESRC Transition Funding
01/04/2018 → 31/01/2024
Research
Representations of social care in the UK press: A pilot study
01/04/2018 → 31/05/2018
Research
Lancaster University Business Plan – ESRC Business Boost Fund
01/02/2018 → 31/03/2019
Research
Big data media analysis and the representation of urban violence in Brazil
01/01/2015 → 31/12/2015
Research
Translating science for young people
14/11/2014 → 14/07/2016
Research
ESRC centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science - CASS
31/03/2013 → 30/03/2018
Research
Metaphor in End of Life Care
01/09/2012 → 28/06/2014
Research
Using a semantic annotation tool for research on metaphor in discourse
01/12/2005 → …
Research
Vaccination is a huge global health success, so why do people hesitate?
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Vaccination Discourse Seminar
Invited talk
Metaphor, and why it matters
Invited talk
Understanding carers’ perspectives of supporting friends and family members who have experienced suicidal behaviour
Oral presentation
A corpus of Victorian anti-vaccination discourse.
Invited talk
Talk at 3rd International Conference on Historical Medical Discourse
Invited talk
Pain: why and how language matters
Invited talk
Metaphors and Covid-19
Invited talk
DDPO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS PROJECT
Consultancy
Representations of rape and serious sexual offences in the press and on Twitter
Consultancy
Talking health online: Why it matters and what linguistics can contribute
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
A corpus-based study of representations of social care during the 2019 UK General Election campaign
Oral presentation
A corpus linguistic approach to the evaluation of medication safety oversight programs in the United States
Oral presentation
Social care in the UK press: A corpus-based study in collaboration with third-sector organisations
Oral presentation
Poetics and Linguistics Association Conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
4th International Cognitive Poetics Conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Keynote lecture on 'Metaphor and Narrative in Health Communication' at 4th Conference of the European Narrative Network
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
ESRC (External organisation)
Membership of committee
Talk on 'Corpus Linguistics and Health Communication' at Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Invited talk
Lectures in Stylistics and in Health Communication at Fuzhou University, China
Invited talk
Plenary lecture 'Metaphor and Framing in Discourse' at UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Talk on 'Corpus Linguistics and Health Communication' at Georgetown University
Invited talk
Talk on 'Metaphor in End of Life Care' at Sheffield Hallam University
Invited talk
Talk on 'Metaphor in End of Life Care' at Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Invited talk
Talk on Metaphor in End of Life Care at the University of Glasgow
Invited talk
Plenary lecture at symposium on 'The Creating Mind: Interdisciplinary Perspectives', Bar-Ilan University
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Talk on 'Metaphor, creativity and reconceptualisation across genres' at An-Najah National University (West Bank)
Invited talk
Plenary lecture at Cognitive Poetics Symposium in Helsinki
Invited talk
Keynote lecture at 2013 Metaphor Festival in Stockholm
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Invited talks on language and pain at the UK Trigeminal Neuralgia Association Conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Plenary lecture at 'Cognitive Futures of the Humanities' Conference: Reading Minds that can't Mindread
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Talk on 'A linguistic perspective on the McGill pain questionnaire', at London's Eastman Dental Hospital
Invited talk
Lectures in Stylistics at Fuzhou University in China
Invited talk
Lecture at 'Pragma-stylistics' Colloquium, University of Sussex
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Talk on 'Metaphor, creativity and reconceptualization in communication about illness', University of Uppsala
Invited talk
Talk on 'Metaphor, creativity and reconceptualisation', University of East Anglia
Invited talk
- DisTex - Discourse and Text Research Group
- ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science
- FASS Health Hub
- Institute for Social Futures Fellow
- ISF Fellows 2019/20
- Research Group in Cognitive Linguistics
- UCREL - University Centre for Computer Corpus Research on Language