Professor Sylvia Jaworska

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+44 (0) 118 378 7885
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Professor of Language and Professional Communication
- Head of Department
Areas of interest
Sylvia explores professional communication in (new) media, business and health settings focusing predominantly (but not exclusively) on the ways in which language and other semiotic choices are used to construct identities and perpetuate social stereotyping, biases and stigma. She is also interested in persuasive discourse and the fine line between persuasion and manipulation. Her research is interdisciplinary, cross-linguistic and cross-cultural. She examines discourse and communication using tools and techniques from corpus linguistics and discourse analysis as well as other quantitative and qualitative methods adopted in linguistics and social sciences including interviews, focus groups and surveys. Beyond academia, Sylvia engages in consultancy work on matters pertaining to equality, diversity and inclusion in workplace, and effective organisational communication for and between diverse stakeholders.
Current funded projects:
Co-Investigator: Maternal Well-Being, Infant Feeding and Return to Paid Work funded by the Nuffield Trust (2022-2025)
Past funded projects:
Co-Investigator: Health Claims Unpacked - Investigating the Communication of Scientific Health Claims on Food - a large interdisciplinary project funded by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology/Horizon 2020 (2018-2022)
Co-Investigator: Quarantined between Cultures, British Academy, Special Research Grants: Covid-19 (2021-2022)
Postgraduate supervision
Sylvia supervises/co-supervises seven PhD students.Teaching
Currently, Sylvia teaches the following modules:
- LS3/MCBL: Introduction to Corpus Linguistics
- LS3LPC: Language in Professional Communication
Background
Other activities involve:
- Member of the Research Group: Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace
- Consultant on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) for organisations
- Co-Editor, Journal of Corpora and Discourse Studies (JCaDS)
- Member of the Editorial Board of Discourse, Context and Media
- Visiting Associate Professor, Department of English, City University of Hong Kong
- Visiting Professor, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
Publications
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Rowson, T.
ORCID: 0000-0002-1605-2927 , Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 , Gibas, I. (2023) Hot topic: examining discursive representations of menopause and work in the British media. Gender, Work & Organization ISSN: 1468-0432 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13021
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Alsibai, D.
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 (2023) Triangulating visual and textual corpus-assisted discourse analysis to study social actor representations: the case of Saudi women in the British and Saudi news media. Corpora ISSN: 1755-1676
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Ryder, C.
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 , Grasso, S. (2023) Hybrid meat products and co-creation: what do consumers say, feel and think?. Frontiers in Nutrition , 10 ISSN: 2296-861X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1106079
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 (2023) Fakespeak in 280 characters: using a corpus-based approach to study the language of disinformation on Twitter. In: Maci, S. , Demata, M. , McGlashan, M. , Seargeant, P. , (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Discourse and Disinformation. Routledge ISBN: 9781032124254
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 (2023) But then something happened: a critical multimodal genre analysis of corporate image repair videos. English for Specific Purposes , 69 pp. 95-108. ISSN: 0889-4906 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2022.10.004
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Hofweber, J.
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 (2022) Polite impoliteness? How power, gender and language background shape request strategies in English as a Business Lingua Franca (BELF) in corporate email exchanges. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca , 11 (2). pp. 223-253. ISSN: 2191-933X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2022-2085
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 and Vásquez, C. (2022) COVID-19 and the discursive practices of political leadership: introduction. Discourse, Context and Media , 47 ISSN: 2211-6958 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2022.100605
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Zhu, H.
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Jones, R.
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 (2022) Acts of distinction at times of crisis: an epistemological challenge to intercultural communication research. Language and Intercultural Communication , 22 (3). pp. 312-323. ISSN: 1470-8477 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2021.2024563
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Biroli, P.
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Bosworth, S.
ORCID: 0000-0002-8978-9516 , Della Giusta, M.
ORCID: 0000-0003-3959-4451 , Di Girolamo, A. , Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 , Vollen, J. (2021) Family life in lockdown. Frontiers in Psychology , 12 ISSN: 1664-1078 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.687570
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 (2021) Competence and collectivity: the discourse of Angela Merkel’s media communications during the first wave of the pandemic. Discourse, Context and Media , 42 ISSN: 2211-6958 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100506
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 (2021) Investigating media representations of the coronavirus in the UK, USA and Germany: what can a comparative corpus-based discourse analysis contribute to our understanding of the Covid-19 pandemic?. In: Jones, R. , (eds.) Viral Discourse. Elements in applied linguistics Cambridge University Press , Cambridge. pp. 26-37. ISBN: 9781108986465
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Kinloch, K.
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 (2021) ‘Your mind is part of your body’: negotiating the maternal body in online stories of postnatal depression on Mumsnet. Discourse, Context and Media , 39 ISSN: 2211-6958 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2020.100456
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Grasso, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-6089-864X and Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 (2020) Part meat and part plant: are hybrid meat products fad or future?. Foods , 9 (12). ISSN: 2304-8158 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods9121888
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Lockyer, S.
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Ryder, C.
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 , Benelam, B. , Jones, R. (2020) Developing a digital toolkit to enhance the communication of health claims: the Health Claims Unpacked project. Nutrition Bulletin , 45 (4). pp. 432-443. ISSN: 1471-9827 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nbu.12469
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Goodman, M.
ORCID: 0000-0003-4861-029X and Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 (2020) Mapping digital foodscapes: digital food influencers and the grammars of good food. Geoforum , 117 pp. 183-193. ISSN: 0016-7185 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.09.020
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Jaworska, S.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7465-2245 (2020) Discourse of advertising. In: Friginal, E. and Hardy, J. , (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Approaches to Discourse Analysis. Routledge Handbooks Routledge pp. 428-444. ISBN: 9780367201814
- Della Giusta, M. , Jaworska, S. , Vukadinovic Greetham, D. (2020) Expert communication on Twitter: comparing economists and scientists’ social networks, topics and communicative styles. Public Understanding of Science , 30 (1). pp. 75-90. ISSN: 1361-6609 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0963662520957252
- Jones, R. , Jaworska, S. , Aslan, E. (2020) Language and media: a resource book for students. Routledge English Language Introductions Routledge , Abington, Oxon.
- Alangari, M. , Jaworska, S. , Laws, J. (2020) Who’s afraid of phrasal verbs? The use of phrasal verbs in expert academic writing in the discipline of linguistics. Journal of English for Academic Purposes , 43 ISSN: 1475-1585 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2019.100814
- Jaworska, S. (2020) Corporate discourse. In: De Fina, A. and Georgakopoulou-Nunes, A. , (eds.) Handbook of Discourse Studies. Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9781108348195 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781108348195
- Kinloch, K. and Jaworska, S. (2020) Using a comparative corpus-assisted approach to study health and illness discourses across domains: the case of postnatal depression (PND) in lay, medical and media texts. In: Demjen, Z. , (eds.) Applying linguistics in Illness and Healthcare Contexts. Bloomsbury ISBN: 9781350057661
- Stenka, R. and Jaworska, S. (2019) The use of made-up users. Accounting, Organizations and Society , 78 ISSN: 0361-3682 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2019.07.001
- Hunt, S. and Jaworska, S. (2019) Intersections of nationality, gender, race and crime in news reporting: the case of Oscar Pistorius – Olympian and murderer. Discourse, Context & Media , 30 ISSN: 2211-6958 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2019.100299
- Jaworska, S. and Sogomonian, T. (2019) After we #VoteLeave we can #TakeControl: political campaigning and imagined collectives on Twitter before the Brexit vote. In: Lutzky, U. and Nevala, M. , (eds.) Reference and Identity in Public Discourses. Pragmatics & Beyond New Series John Benjamins (306). , Amsterdam, Netherlands. pp. 181-202. | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns.306.07jaw
- Feola, G. and Jaworska, S. (2019) One transition, many transitions? A corpus-based study of societal sustainability transition discourses in four civil society’s proposals. Sustainability Science , 14 (6). pp. 1643-1656. ISSN: 1862-4065 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0631-9
- Jaworska, S. (2019) Spoken language in science and the humanities. In: Dascal, M. , Leßmöllmann, A. , Gloning, T. , (eds.) Science Communication. Handbooks of Communication Science , 17. De Gruyter Mouton (17). pp. 271-288. ISBN: 9783110255522
- Jaworska, S. and Ryan, K. (2018) Gender and the language of pain in chronic and terminal illness: a corpus-based discourse analysis of patients’ narratives. Social Science & Medicine , 215 pp. 107-114. ISSN: 0277-9536 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.09.002
- Jaworska, S. (2018) Change but no climate change: discourses of climate change in corporate social responsibility reporting in the oil industry. International Journal of Business Communication , 55 (2). pp. 194-219. ISSN: 2329-4884 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2329488417753951
- Jaworska, S. (2018) ‘Bad’ mums tell the ‘untellable’: narrative practices and agency in online stories about postnatal depression on Mumsnet. Discourse, Context and Media , 25 pp. 25-33. ISSN: 2211-6958 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2017.11.002
- Jaworska, S. and Leuschner, T. (2018) Anglo-German discourse crossings and contrasts: introduction to the special issue. Pragmatics & Society , 9. Pragmatics and Society , 9 (1). ISSN: 1878-9714 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ps.16029.jaw
- Jaworska, S. and Kinloch, K. (2018) Using multiple data sets. In: Taylor, C. and Marchi, A. , (eds.) Corpus Approaches to Discourse: A Critical Review. Routledge , London. pp. 110-129. ISBN: 9781138895782
- Jaworska, S. and Themistocleous, C. (2018) Public discourses on multilingualism in the UK: triangulating a corpus study with a sociolinguistic attitude survey. Language in Society , 47 (1). pp. 57-88. ISSN: 0047-4045 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047404517000744
- Jaworska, S. and Leuschner, T. (2018) Crossing languages - crossing discourses: a corpus-assisted discourse study of Kulturkampf in German, Polish and English. Pragmatics and Society , 9 (1). pp. 119-149. ISSN: 1878-9714 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ps.16028.jaw (Special issue 'Anglo-German Discourse Crossings and Contrasts')
- Jaworska, S. and Nanda, A. (2018) Doing well by talking good? A topic modelling-assisted discourse study of corporate social responsibility. Applied Linguistics , 39 (3). pp. 373-399. ISSN: 1477-450X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw014
- Jaworska, S. (2018) Corpus approaches to language in the media. In: Cotter, C. and Perrin, D. , (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Language and Media. Routledge ISBN: 9781138014176
- Jaworska, S. (2017) Metaphors we travel by: a corpus-assisted study of metaphors in promotional tourism discourse. Metaphor and Symbol , 32 (3). pp. 161-177. ISSN: 1532-7868 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2017.1338018
- Laws, J. , Ryder, C. , Jaworska, S. (2017) A diachronic corpus-based study into the effects of age and gender on the usage patterns of verb-forming suffixation in spoken British English. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics , 22 (3). pp. 375-402. ISSN: 1569-9811 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.22.3.04law
- Jaworska, S. and Hunt, S. (2017) Intersections and differentiations: a corpus-assisted discourse study of gender representations in the British press before, during and after the London Olympics 2012. Gender and Language , 11 (3). pp. 336-364. ISSN: 1747-633X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1558/genl.28858
- Jaworska, S. (2017) Corpora and corpus linguistics approaches to studying business language. In: Mautner, G. and Rainer, F. , (eds.) Handbook of business communication: linguistic approaches. Handbooks of applied linguistics Handbook of Business Communication (13). pp. 583-606. ISSN: 9781614514862 ISBN: 9781614514862
- Jaworska, S. (2016) Using a corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) approach to investigate constructions of identities in media reporting surrounding mega sport events: the case of the London Olympics 2012. In: Lamond, I. and Platt, L. , (eds.) Critical Events Studies: Approaches to Research. Leisure Studies in a Global Era Palgrave Macmillan , Basingstoke. pp. 149-174. ISBN: 9781137523846 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52386-0_8
- Jaworska, S. (2016) A comparative corpus-assisted discourse study of the representations of hosts in promotional tourism discourse. Corpora , 11 (1). pp. 83-111. ISSN: 1755-1676 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3366/cor.2016.0086
- Di Fatta, G. , Reade, J. , Jaworska, S. , Nanda, A. (2015) Big social data and political sentiment: the tweet stream during the UK General Election 2015 campaign.
- Jaworska, S. , Krummes, C. , Ensslin, A. (2015) Formulaic sequences in native and non-native argumentative writing in German. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics , 20 (4). pp. 500-525. ISSN: 1569-9811 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.20.4.04jaw
- Salamoura, A. , Littlemore, J. , Murakami, A. , Jaworska, S. (2015) Directions in English profile research. In: Harrison, J. and Barker, F. , (eds.) English Profile in Practice. English Profile Studies Cambridge University Press (5). , Cambridge. pp. 106-120. ISBN: 9781107493988
- Jaworska, S. (2015) Review of recent research (1998-2012) in German for Academic Purposes (GAP) in comparison with English for Academic Purposes (EAP): cross-influences, synergies and implications for further research. Language Teaching , 48 (2). pp. 163-197. ISSN: 1475-3049 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S026144481400038X
- Jaworska, S. (2014) Playful language alternation in an online discussion forum: the example of digital code plays. Journal of Pragmatics , 71 pp. 56-68. ISSN: 0378-2166 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.07.009
- Jaworska, S. (2013) The quest for the 'local' and 'authentic' Corpus-based explorations into the discursive constructions of tourist destinations in British and German commercial travel advertising. In: Höhmann, D. , (eds.) Tourismuskommunikation.Im Spannungsfeld von Sprach- und Kulturkontakt (Series: Arbeiten zur Sprachanalyse. Peter Lang , Frankfurt am Main. pp. 75-100. ISBN: 9783631629345
- Jaworska, S. and Krishnamurty, R. (2012) On the F-word: a corpus-based analysis of the media representation of Feminism in British and German press discourse,1990-2009. Discourse and Society , 23 (4). pp. 401-431. ISSN: 0957-9265 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926512441113
- Jaworska, S. and Larrivée, P. (2011) Women, power and the media: assessing the bias. Journal of Pragmatics , 43 (10). pp. 2477-2479. ISSN: 0378-2166 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.02.008
- Jaworska, S. (2011) Der Wissenschaftlichkeit auf der Spur: zum Einsatz von Korpora in der Vermittlung des Deutschen als (fremder) Wissenschaftssprache. Deutsch als Fremdsprache , 2011 (4). pp. 235-244. ISSN: 0011-9741
- Jaworska, S. (2011) Anti-Slavic imagery in German radical nationalist discourse at the turn of the twentieth century: a prelude to Nazi ideology?. Patterns of Prejudice , 45 (5). pp. 435-452. ISSN: 1461-7331 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2011.624762
- Jaworska, S. (2010) Anglo-German academic encounters before the First World War and the work towards peace: the case of Karl Breul. Angermion: yearbook for Anglo-German literary criticism, intellectual history and cultural transfers , 3 pp. 135-160. ISSN: 1868-9426 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110222715.2.135
- Jaworska, S. (2009) Where have all the linguists gone? The position of Linguistics in British German Studies from the mid-19th century until 2000. In: Pfalzgraf, F. , (eds.) Englischer Sprachkontakt in den Varietäten des Deutschen = English in contact with varieties of German. Österreichisches Deutsch Sprache der Gegenwart Peter Lang (12). , Frankfurt am Main. pp. 13-34. ISBN: 9783631581322
- Jaworska, S. (2009) The German language in Poland: the eternal foe and the wars on words. In: Carl, J. and Stevenson, P. , (eds.) Language, discourse and identity in Central Europe: the German language in a multilingual space. Language and globalization Palgrave Macmillan , Basingstoke. ISBN: 9780230224353
- Jaworska, S. (2009) The German language in British higher education: problems, challenges, teaching and learning perspectives. Fremdsprachen in Geschichte und Gegenwart , 5. Harrassowitz , Wiesbaden. pp 222. ISBN: 9783447060059