Past projects

DIGITAL DISCOURSE DATABASE
The Digital Discourse Database was the cornerstone of a research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation under the rubric of Cultural Discourses and Social Meanings of Mobile Communication (Jan 2016-March 2019; CRSII1-160714). This project was itself part of What's Up, Switzerland?, a larger Sinergia research programme conducted together with colleagues at the universities of Zurich, Bern, Neuchâtel and Leipzig.

Undertaken with a full-time doctoral researcher (Vanessa Jaroski) and part-time student research assistant (Sabrina Subasic), the Cultural Discourse and Social Meanings of Mobile Communication project took a cultural approach to the language of mobile communication by asking: “How is mobile communication talked about in public contexts?” and “How do mobile communicators describe their own linguistic and communicative practices?” In other words, the focus is on language about mobile communication as a way to illuminate broader media ideologies and language ideologies. The project asked: How are people’s preferences and practices shifting? What are their interpersonal, affective and practical motivations for using one mobile technology over another? To what extent are these on-the-ground preferences and practices reflected in wider public discussions about mobile/online communication?

The project was organized around two complementary strands of research activity, all of which centred on the creation of a unique, open-access repository: the Digital Discourse Database. The first, primary strand of work entailed archiving and analysing a substantial dataset of national, regional and also international newspaper reports about new media language with specific reference to mobile messaging. The second, supplementary strand of work entailed an up-to-date ethnographic survey of local Swiss users of mobile/online communication technologies. A distinctive feature of the Digital Discourse Database (and the project as a whole) is the archiving of visual representations of mobile communication and other new media. Key publications arising from this project include:

  • Thurlow, C., Dürscheid, C. & Diémoz, F. (eds). (2020). Visualizing Digital Discourse: Interactional, Institutional and Ideological Perspectives. Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Jaroski, V. (2020). The Affective Regimes of Digital Discourse: A Multimodal, Multilingual Study of Language, Media and Gender Ideologies. PhD thesis (University of Bern), published online.
  • Thurlow, C. & Jaroski, V. (2020). ‘Emoji invasion’: The semiotic ideologies of language endangerment in multilingual news discourse. In C. Thurlow, C. Dürscheid, & F. Diemoz (eds), Visualizing Digital Discourse: Interactional, Institutional and Ideological Perspectives (pp. 45-64). Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Thurlow, C. (2019). Mediatizing sex: Sexting and/as digital discourse. In K. Hall & R. Barrett (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality. New York: OUP.

ELITE MOBILITIES
Arising from long-standing work on tourism discourse, Elite Mobilities examined the discursive production of status and privilege in the context of so called high-end or luxury travel. Much of the Elite Mobilities work was done in collaboration with my colleague Adam Jaworski at the University of Hong Kong; it has also been largely subsumed into a more general strand of work on language, class and privilege under the rubric of Language and Elitism. The project received key support from a start-up grant given to me through the University of Washington's Royalty Research Fund. At the heart of the project, this seed funding made possible a multi-sited discourse-ethnography of four different spaces or modes of luxury travel; each represented a different mode of high-end travel: “global”, “retro”, “imperial” and “egalitarian” (see Thurlow & Jaworski, 2012 – listed below).

The primary objective of the Elite Mobilities project has been to document and understand the linguistic, visual, spatial and material resources commonly deployed in the performance of distinction and superiority by marketers and other commercial agents. Throughout, we have been struck by the strategic – often manipulative – toggling between different semiotic resources. An early foray into this terrain was a 2006 paper on the symbolic economies of international airlines’ frequent-flyer programmes; this is something we have taken up through the lens of “language materiality” in a more recent 2017 paper (also listed below). In my most recent, independent writing, my attention has been turned to the cultural politics of “premium” sleeping. Indicative publications include:

  • Thurlow, C. (in press) Beyond the managed heart? Seduction, subjugation and the symbolic economies of sleep. Social Semiotics, 31(5).
  • Thurlow, C. & Jaworski, A. (2018). Word-things and thing-words: The transmodal production of privilege and status. In J. R. Cavanaugh & S. Shankar (eds), Language and materiality: Ethnographical and theoretical explorations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Thurlow, C. & Jaworski, A. (2014). Visible-invisible: The social semiotics of labour in luxury tourism. In T Birtchnell & J. Caletrío (eds), Elite Mobilities (pp. 176-193). London: Routledge.
  • Thurlow, C. & Jaworski, A. (2012). Elite mobilities: The semiotic landscapes of luxury and privilege. Social Semiotics, 22(5), 487-516.
  • Thurlow, C. & Jaworski, A. (2010). Silence is golden: Elitism, linguascaping and ‘anti-communication’ in luxury tourism. In A. Jaworski & C. Thurlow (eds), Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space (pp. 187-218). London: Continuum.
  • Thurlow, C. & Jaworski, A. (2006). The alchemy of the upwardly mobile: Symbolic capital and the stylization of elites in frequent-flyer programmes. Discourse and Society, 17(1), 99-135.

SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF TEXTING
Some of my earliest work on new media discourse, included a focus on the language of text-messaging (or SMS). This is work I began with an undergraduate student at Cardiff University (Alexandra Brown) but which lead to  other publications and to allied projects, such as:

  • Thurlow, C. & Poff, M. (2013). The language of text messaging. In S. C. Herring; D. Stein; & T. Virtanen (eds), Handbook of the Pragmatics of Computer Mediated Communication (pp. 151-181). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Thurlow, C. (2012). Determined creativity: Language play in new media discourse. In R. Jones (ed.). Discourse and Creativity (pp. 169-190). London: Pearson.

LANGUAGE AND TOURISM
In 2001, I first began working with a team of colleagues at Cardiff University on a $2-million research program on Language and Global Communication. Within this broader program, my own work with Adam Jaworski focused specifically on a project around Tourism as a Global Cultural Industry. This project is culminated in a book-length monograph and other indicative publications:

  • Thurlow, C. & Jaworski, A. (2010). Tourism Discourse: Language and Global Mobility. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

VISUALIZING THE GLOBAL
In keeping with my work on tourism discourse, I have also been interested in examining how visual discourse is globalized, working together with Giorgia Aiello (University of Leeds) and Adam Jaworski. Indicative publications include:

  • Thurlow, C. & Aiello, G. (2007). National pride, global capital: A social semiotic analysis of transnational visual branding in the airline industry. Visual Communication, 6(3), 305-344.
  • Thurlow, C. & Jaworski, A. (2010). Silence is golden: Elitism, linguascaping and ‘anti-communication’ in luxury tourism. In A. Jaworski & C. Thurlow (eds), Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space (pp. 187-218). London: Continuum.

SEMIOTIC LANDSCAPES
Again, closely related to my work on tourism but also with my interest in visual discourse, this collaborative work with Adam Jaworski culminated in an edited collection (Semiotic Landscapes: Text, Image, Space) and indicative publications such as:

  • Jaworski, A. & Thurlow, C. (2011). Tracing place, locating self: Embodiment and (re)mediation in/of tourist spaces. Visual Communication, 10(3), 349-366.
  • Jaworski, A. & Thurlow, C. (2013). The (de-)centering spaces of airports: Framing mobility and multilingualism . In S. Pietikäinen & H. Kelly-Holmes (eds), Multilingualism and the Periphery. New York: Oxford University Press.