Suchergebnisse

This study examines the Stamina case, one of the most controversial mediatic incidents of the last years in Italy, from an applied linguistic perspective. Through the analysis of a small corpus of texts published on the online version of Nature (Nature.com) between 2013 and 2014, it investigates how scientists, political and health institutions, the media, the patients and the public interact when faced with (pseudo)scientific news that may be relevant from a public health perspective. Based on selected sociological models of science communication (Bucchi 1998; Bucchi and Neresini 2008; Trench 2008; Hetland 2014; Metcalfe 2014; Neresini 2015), combined with methodological tools from critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1995, 2003; Eisenhart and Johnstone 2008; Wodak 2013), argumentation theory (van Eemeren et al. 2004), and making reference to science popularisation studies (Calsamiglia 2003; Garzone 2006), the qualitative analysis shows how the communication pattern of scientific news with public health relevance is changing. Power relations are on the move and so are the aims, the communicative strategies and the genres employed. These are in fact influenced by a growing interaction between bottom-up pressures (patients, families, the public, the media) and a topdown diffusion of information (scientists, political and healthcare institutions, the media) with the latter prevailing over the former. From the data collected, it seems crucial that the dissemination and popularisation of scientific issues should be further spread. Scientists must counter propaganda and hysteria on (social) media, as well as engage more directly with people (Hunter 2016) in order to oppose pseudoscience.

Francesco Algarotti's Newtonianismo per le dame (1737) played a significant role in the popularization of Newton(ianism) on the Continent and in Britain in the 18th century. Compiled as a seduction manual for ladies after the fashion of contemporary poems and novels, it targeted the largest possible lay audience in order to gain potential advocates for the new experimental science and to covertly denounce Italy's stagnant political, social, and cultural condition. This study discusses some of the most recent scholarly interpretations the text and its four English issues (1739, 1742, 1765, and 1772) have so far received, explaining how it was transmitted differently in Italy and in Britain. It then examines the linguistic popularizing strategies, focusing especially upon the terminology employed by Algarotti to address a lay audience and its English-language rendering in Elizabeth Carter's first English translation (1739). Results show that diverse popularizing techniques were employed, which were mainly translated into English literally by Carter, although some important instances of adaptation and reformulation emerge revealing precise strategies not only to further simplify the text but also to accommodate it to a different readership and separate aims. The investigation combines methods derived from (Critical) discourse analysis (Fairclough 2013; Gee 2014) and historical pragmatics (Culpeper and Kÿto 2010). Studies of popularization strategies (Garzone 2006), English for scientific purposes (Gotti 1992, 2011, 2013), English historical linguistics (Bergs and Brinton 2012), and models of translation analysis (Vinay and Darbelnet 1958; Reiss 1976; Newmark 1988; Baker and Saldanha 2011) are also referred to.

This study examines the Stamina case, one of the most controversial mediatic incidents of the last years in Italy, from an applied linguistic perspective. Through the analysis of a small corpus of texts published on the online version of Nature (Nature.com) between 2013 and 2014, it investigates how scientists, political and health institutions, the media, the patients and the public interact when faced with (pseudo)scientific news that may be relevant from a public health perspective. Based on selected sociological models of science communication (Bucchi 1998; Bucchi and Neresini 2008; Trench 2008; Hetland 2014; Metcalfe 2014; Neresini 2015), combined with methodological tools from critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1995, 2003; Eisenhart and Johnstone 2008; Wodak 2013), argumentation theory (van Eemeren et al. 2004), and making reference to science popularisation studies (Calsamiglia 2003; Garzone 2006), the qualitative analysis shows how the communication pattern of scientific news with public health relevance is changing. Power relations are on the move and so are the aims, the communicative strategies and the genres employed. These are in fact influenced by a growing interaction between bottom-up pressures (patients, families, the public, the media) and a topdown diffusion of information (scientists, political and healthcare institutions, the media) with the latter prevailing over the former. From the data collected, it seems crucial that the dissemination and popularisation of scientific issues should be further spread. Scientists must counter propaganda and hysteria on (social) media, as well as engage more directly with people (Hunter 2016) in order to oppose pseudoscience.

This paper proposes an investigation into the discourse that surrounds and informs the communication of medically assisted death. The aim is to produce an analysis of assisted dying discourse in the British vs Italian news media to investigate how they construct this type of discourse in terms of actors, ideologies, and cultural aspects. This has been done by collecting a corpus of texts on the topic from English and Italian speaking online quality newspapers. The collection was analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods. The perspective adopted for the qualitative interpretation was that of Critical Discourse Analysis for the socially relevant issues that the topic addresses. Results show how the language used by the media to deal with this bioethical issue reflects that a) in both corpora, actors tend to be the same, including doctors, patients, courts and parliament, especially in the UK, where a law on assisted dying has not been passed yet; b) in both countries, powerful ideologies are at play, principally in the form of Christian views and especially Catholic ones in Italy; c) some cultural differences emerge, especially as regards the diverse legal systems and the specific cases of British or Italian citizens whose stories have contributed to raising awareness on the issue and to influencing the political debate about it in the respective countries.

This volume deals with ageing and ageism mostly from an applied linguistic perspective, especially (critical) discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, translation studies and from the legal point of view. It highlights the close connection between ages, language and technologies at a global level.