Dr Alon Lischinsky

• CMC4001 Understanding Communication (leader only): We intuitively think of communication as essentially transmitting information - and we couldn't be more wrong. This module aims to introduce students to a social and semiotic view of communication that views it instead as the delicate coordination of human interaction: how do people know what to say (or write), and how to say it? How do they know when it is time to speak, or to be silent (or to text, or to tweet, or to post to their Instagram flow)? How do people create, through their communicative choices, different forms of social relations?
• CMC5002 Research Methods: Research is not an obscure, arcane skill. Journalists, advertisers, government regulators, public relations specialists, information officers and a myriad other communication specialists face every day the need to compile and analyse reliable information, and to explain it in a useful manner. This module intends to help students learn how to plan, conduct and report original research for both academic and professional purposes.
• CMC5004 Design for Online Communication: Communicating online requires not only the technical and creative skills to manipulate image and text, but also an understanding of how the behaviour of audiences changes in this specific social, cultural and technological context. This module intends to introduce students to the fundamental practical elements of web design, including HTML and CSS coding. No prior programming experience required.
• CMC6002 Special Topics: Communication, media and cultural studies are fast-moving fields. This module introduces participants to an issue or topic of particular contemporary relevance at the time of teaching, drawing on the CMC staff research specialisms.
• CMC6003 Branded Communication: We like in a world saturated by the pervasive influence of the persuasion industries - advertising, branding, public relations, etc. This module explores the techniques used by commercial and non-commercial organisations to build their image in the eyes of the public, developing at the same time a practical command of these skills and a critical reflection on the effects they have on contemporary culture and society.
• CMC6005/CMC6006 Dissertation modules (Module Leader)

I am currently supervising the work of the following doctoral candidates:

One of my main lines of research addresses questions of sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility reporting, environmentally-themed public relations and advertising, and greenwash.

A separate strand of research (in collaboration with Dr Kat Gupta (University of Roehampton) looks into the cultural construction of sexual norms and scripts, through the exploration of the fantasies and desires expressed in user-generated online erotica.

More broadly, I am interested in using critical discourse analysis to investigate shifts in social relations of production, especially the social impact of managerialism as an "expert system"; societal representations of labour; and the managerialisation of the self, personal life and the environment.

My research takes a Digital Humanities approach, using computer-aided methods to examine large datsets of text-based communication in order to model the social and cultural dynamics that motivate it.

• Founding editor of the Journal of Corpora and Discourse Studies.
• On the editorial board of Critical Discourse Studies and the International Journal of Marketing Semiotics.
• Book review editor for Discourse & Society.

• Lischinsky, A. (2015) ‘Modelling interpersonal dimensions in presidential discourse’. Paper presented to the iMean 4 Conference, Warwick
• Lischinsky, A. (2015) ‘Doing the naughty or having it done to you: agent roles in erotic writing’. Paper presented to the Corpus Linguistics 2015 Conference, Lancaster
• Lischinsky, A. (2014) ‘Modelling Argentine presidential discourse (2007–2014): a computational approach’. Paper presented to the CADAAD’14 Conference, Budapest
• Lischinsky, A. and Egan Sjölander, A. (2013) ‘Corporate voices in the public sphere: PR and the environment’. Paper presented to the 2013 Conference on Communication and Environment, Uppsala
• Lischinsky, A. (2013) ‘What’s the environment doing in my report?’. Paper presented to the Corpus Linguistics 2013 Conference, Lancaster
• Lischinsky, A. (2012) ‘Misinformed participation: corporate greenwash and the exclusion of consumers from environmental decision-making’. Paper presented to the 2nd ISA Forum, Buenos Aires
• Lischinsky, A. (2012) ‘Framing analysis across the disciplines? (critical) discourse studies in interdisciplinary research projects’. Paper presented to the CADAAD’12 Conference, Braga
• Lischinsky, A. (2011) ‘‘We believe we are a constructive partner in society’: A corpus perspective on the discursive construction of a corporate self in annual reports’. Paper presented to the Rhetoric in Society III Conference, Antwerp
• Lischinsky, A. (2010) ‘‘Our business acumen has proved to be invaluable in times of crisis’: A corpus perspective on the discursive construction of critical events in annual reports’. Paper presented to the 9th International Conference on Organizational Discourse, Amsterdam
• Lischinsky, A. (2010) ‘The struggle over sustainability: a corpus approach to managerial conceptions of sustainable development’. Paper presented to the CADAAD’10 Conference “Ideology, identity and interaction”, Łódź
• Lischinsky, A. (2010) ‘The business conception of sustainable development: a view from corpus linguistics’. Paper presented to the IAMCR 2010 Conference “Communication and citizenship”, Braga
• Lischinsky, A. (2009) ‘The narrative construction of managerial expertise. Storytelling in popular management books’. Paper presented to the International Conference on Narrative, Birmingham
• Lischinsky, A. (2009) ‘Talking like you mean business. Metadiscourse in popular books on management’. Paper presented to the XXVII AESLA International Conference, Ciudad Real, Spain
• Coromines, D., Lischinsky, A. and Valls, M. (2009) ‘La redacció del Treball de Fi de Grau: Proposta didàctica per superar les mancances de la competència escrita acadèmica dels estudiants’ [Writing final year projects: a pedagogic proposal to improve the teaching of academic writing]. Paper presented to the Jornades de Docència 2009, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
• Lischinsky, A. (2008) ‘Titling practices in popular management books’. Paper presented to the Interpersonality in Written Academic Discourse Conference: Perspective across Languages and Cultures, Jaca, Spain
• Lischinsky, A. (2008) ‘Lo que el dinero no puede comprar. Higiene verbal en la recepción de la jerga gerencial’ [What money can’t buy: verbal hygiene in the public understanding of managerial jargon]. Paper presented to the XII Jornadas Nacionales de Investigadores en Comunicación, Rosario, Argentina
• Lischinsky, A. (2008) ‘At the crossroads of language, class and culture: Responses to managerial jargon in Spanish’. Paper presented to the 4th International Conference of Hispanic Linguistics & 2nd Biennial Meeting of the International Association for the Study of Spanish in Society “Spanish at work”, Swansea
• Lischinsky, A. and Antonini, C. (2008) ‘Dollars are green too. A discourse-based approach to the analysis of corporate social responsibility reports’. Paper presented to the II European Communication Conference “Communication Policies and Culture in Europe”, Barcelona
• Lischinsky, A. (2007) ‘“Show, don’t tell”. Racism in the visual depiction of the other in high school textbooks’. Paper presented to the II Language Ideologies and Media Discourse Conference, Leeds
• Lischinsky, A. (2007) ‘Examples as persuasive communication in popular management literature’. Paper presented to the XIV Susanne Hübner International Seminar, Zaragoza

For up-to-date versions of my publications, please visit my Google Citations page.