This study examines the ways in which information originating in epidemiological reports is recontextualized in the @ECDC_VPD account, the Twitter account of a European health agency. Using a corpus-assisted discourse analytical approach complemented with multimodal analysis, this study compares the strategies used to achieve proximity (Hyland 2010) in the space-constrained genre of Twitter with those used in the source texts. The study finds that the macro-structural properties of the @ECDC_VPD tweets have become more complex over time and the use of images to enhance meaning-making has increased. The drive to present claims as newsworthy, coupled with the 140/280-character constraint, results in the tweets containing greater relative use of stance markers and lower use of epistemic modals than is observed in the source texts. The @ECDC_VPD tweets display a greater range of engagement strategies than is seen in the source texts.
Anthony, Laurence. 2019. AntConc (Version 3.5.8) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Available from [URL]
Anthony, Laurence, and Claire Hardaker. 2017. FireAnt (Version 1.1.4) [Computer Software]. Tokyo: Waseda University. Available from [URL]
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Büchi, Moritz. 2016. “Microblogging as an Extension of Science Reporting.” Public Understanding of Science 26 (8): 953–968.
Caliendo, Giuditta. 2014. “The Popularization of Science in Web-based Genres.” In The Language of Popularization: Theoretical and Descriptive Models, ed. by Giancarmine Bongo, and Giuditta Caliendo, 101–132. Bern: Peter Lang.
Calsamiglia, Helena, and Teun van Dijk. 2004. “Popularization Discourse and Knowledge about the Genome.” Discourse and Society 15 (4): 369–389.
ECDC. (2005–2019). Copyright and Limited Reproduction Notices. Retrieved 7 June 2019. [URL]
Fahnestock, Jeanne. 1986. “Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts.” Written Communication 3 (3): 275–296.
Hilgartner, Stephen. 1990. “The Dominant View of Popularization: Conceptual Problems, Political Uses.” Social Studies of Science 20 (3): 519–539.
Hoey, Michael. 1983. On the Surface of Discourse. London: Allen and Unwin.
Hunston, Susan. 2011. Corpus Approaches to Evaluation: Phraseology and Evaluative Language. London: Routledge.
Hyland, Ken. 2005. “Stance and Engagement: A Model of Interaction in Academic Discourse.” Discourse Studies 7 (2): 173–192.
Hyland, Ken. 2010. “Constructing Proximity: Relating to Readers in Popular and Professional Science.” English for Academic Purposes 9 (2): 116–127.
Knight, Dawn. 2015. “e-Language: Communication in the Digital Age.” In Corpora and Discourse Studies: Integrating Discourse and Corpora, ed. by Paul Baker, and Tony McEnery, 20–40. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kramarz, Piotr, Pierluigi Lopalco, Emma Huitric, and Lucia Pastore-Celentano. 2014. “Vaccine-preventable Diseases: The Role of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.” Clinical Microbiology and Infection 20 (s5): 2–6.
Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. 1996. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.
Luzón, María-José. 2013. “Public Communication of Science in Blogs: Recontextualizing Scientific Discourse for a Diversified Audience.” Written Communication 30 (4): 428–457.
Machin, David. 2007. Introduction to Multimodal Analysis. London: Hodder Arnold.
Maci, Stefania. 2014. “Institutional Popularization of Medical Knowledge: The Case of Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1).” In The Language of Popularization: Theoretical and Descriptive Models, ed. by Giancarmine Bongo, and Giuditta Caliendo, 165–189. Bern: Peter Lang.
Miller, Thomas. 1998. “Visual Persuasion: A Comparison of Visuals in Academic Texts and the Popular Press.” English for Specific Purposes 17 (1): 29–46.
Puschmann, Cornelius. 2014. “(Micro)blogging Science? Notes on Potentials and Constraints of New Forms of Scholarly Communication.” In Opening Science, ed. by Sascha Friesike, and Sönke Bartling, 89–106. New York: Springer.
Scotto di Carlo, Giuseppina. 2014. “The Role of Proximity in Online Popularizations: The Case of TED Talks.” Discourse Studies 16 (5): 591–606.
Shan, Liran, Áine Regan, Aoife De Brún, Julie Barnett, Maarten C. A. van der Sanden, Patrick Wall, and Áine McConnon. 2013. “Food Crisis Coverage by Social and Traditional Media: A Case Study of the 2008 Irish Dioxin Crisis.” Public Understanding of Science 23 (8): 911–928.
Titak, Ashley, and Audrey Roberson. 2013. “Dimensions of Web Registers: An Exploratory Multi-dimensional Comparison.” Corpora 8 (2): 235–260.
Veltri, Giuseppe A., and Dimitrinka Atanasova. 2015. “Climate Change on Twitter: Content, Media Ecology and Information Sharing Behaviour.” Public Understanding of Science 26 (6): 721–737.
Cited by (6)
Cited by six other publications
Falconer, Matthew
2024. The Discursive Boundary Work of Recontextualizing Science for Policy: Opening the Black Box of an Organization’s Genre System and Intermediary Genre Sets. Written Communication 41:3 ► pp. 383 ff.
Villares, Rosana
2024. Twitter conference discussion sessions: How and why researchers engage in online discussions. Research in Corpus Linguistics 13:1 ► pp. 86 ff.
Bocanegra-Valle, Ana
2023. Engaging in predatory practices: How editors persuade prospective authors. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 93 ► pp. 117 ff.
Pérez-Llantada, Carmen
2023. ‘Help us better understand our changing climate’: Exploring the discourse of Citizen Science. Discourse & Communication► pp. 175048132311589 ff.
Pérez-Llantada, Carmen
2024. Identity construction in digital communication for public engagement in science. Discourse Studies
Scales, David, Lindsay Hurth, Wenna Xi, Sara Gorman, Malavika Radhakrishnan, Savannah Windham, Azubuike Akunne, Julia Florman, Lindsey Leininger & Jack Gorman
2023. Addressing Antivaccine Sentiment on Public Social Media Forums Through Web-Based Conversations Based on Motivational Interviewing Techniques: Observational Study. JMIR Infodemiology 3 ► pp. e50138 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 december 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.