Language of Citizen Science

This project is a study of language practices on citizen science forums, looking at crowdsourcing of the interpretation of data.

The success of citizen science depends on the project manager's ability to:

• recruit and retain large numbers of volunteers;
• communicate with them effectively so that they can fulfil their role;
• encourage interaction and discussion so that they are engaged and committed.

In this research we ask the fundamental question: in what ways do language choices and behaviours facilitate or hinder the recruitment, retention, commitment and contribution of citizen scientists?

To undertake this analysis we use a broad linguistic toolkit (corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics, social semiotics).

Project members

Ben Clarke is a Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics. His main research interests are the ways in which context and language are interrelated, as well as multimodality as a framework for text analysis.

Glenn Hadikin is a Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics. His main research interests lie in the areas of corpus linguistics, lexical priming, lexicology, as well as how these apply to the field of World Englishes.

Mario Saraceni is a Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics. His main research interests concern political, ideological and linguistic implications of the presence, the use and the perceptions of English in the world outside the traditional “cultural base” of the language.

John Williams is a Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics. His academic interests lie in lexicography and corpus linguistics, and he has a previous background in dictionary publishing.

Corpus linguistics

Visit our corpus linguistics research page to see more of our work.