The Language of Museum Communication

This volume explores the evolution of the language of museum communication from 1950 to the present day, focusing on its most salient tool, the press release. The analysis is based on a corpus of press releases issued by eight high-profile British and American museums, and has been carried out adopting corpus linguistics and genre analysis methodologies. After identifying the typical features of the museum press release, new media more recently adopted by museums, such as web presentations, blogs, e-news, and social media, are taken into consideration, exploring questions such as how has the language of museum communication changed in order to face the challenge posed by new technologies? Are museum press releases threatened by new approaches used in contemporary public relations? Are the typical press release features still detectable in new genres? Drawing on insights from linguistics, discourse analysis, and museum communication this book will be of great value to researchers and practitioners of applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and museum communication scholars.

Traces the historical development of the language adopted by museums in their communication with the public Explores how technological advances and the rise of social media have influenced museum communication since the 1950s Uses corpus linguistics and genre-analysis methodologies to identify the typical features of the museum press release

Autorentext
Cecilia Lazzeretti is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Studies at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. As a freelance journalist and press officer for an art institution, Fondazione Fotografia Modena, she is professionally involved in the media community. Her research interest concerns corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and genre studies, with a specific focus on the genre of art press releases.

Zusammenfassung
After identifying the typical features of the museum press release, new media more recently adopted by museums, such as web presentations, blogs, e-news, and social media, are taken into consideration, exploring questions such as how has the language of museum communication changed in order to face the challenge posed by new technologies?

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Theoretical background: genre analysis.- Chapter 3: Theoretical background: corpus studies.- Chapter 4: Theoretical background: diachronic studies .- Chapter 5: Relevant domains: media, promotional and art discourse.- Chapter 6: Materials.- Chapter 7: Methods.- Chapter 8: Diachronic lexical variation: growth, decline and stability.- Chapter 9: Diachronic structural variation.- Chapter 10: Conclusions.