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Talking at Work pp 209–234Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Examining the Discourse of Mental Illness in a Corpus of Online Advice-Seeking Messages

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Part of the book series: Communicating in Professions and Organizations ((PSPOD))

Abstract

In recent years corpus linguistic tools have afforded language researchers and health practitioners a powerful method to learn about the linguistic character of health-related communication in a variety of contexts. This chapter charts recent developments in the burgeoning field of corpus-based health communication research and presents a series of studies which aptly illustrate the utility of corpus linguistic techniques for undertaking in-depth, quantitative and qualitative examinations of health-related language data. The overarching argument of this chapter is one in favour of the use of corpus linguistic techniques, which, we argue, are capable of providing revealing insights about how people conceptualize and discursively construct their subjective experiences and understandings of health and illness.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Gavin Brookes & Kevin Harvey

Authors
  1. Gavin Brookes
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  2. Kevin Harvey
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Literature and Languages, Texas A&M University - Commerce, Commerce, Texas, USA

    Lucy Pickering

  2. Applied Linguistics and ESL, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Eric Friginal

  3. English, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

    Shelley Staples

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© 2016 The Author(s)

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Cite this chapter

Brookes, G., Harvey, K. (2016). Examining the Discourse of Mental Illness in a Corpus of Online Advice-Seeking Messages. In: Pickering, L., Friginal, E., Staples, S. (eds) Talking at Work. Communicating in Professions and Organizations. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49616-4_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49616-4_9

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-49615-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-49616-4

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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