Alon Lischinsky's research

Full list of my publications, including full-text versions.

I do research at the intersection of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis. In terms of methods, I am interested in linguistic approaches to digital humanities; critical discourse analysis; and narratology.

The fields I primarily work on are gender and sexuality studies, especially porn studies; branding, corporate and organisational communication; environmental communication and sustainability; and the language of the professions.

I am happy to supervise research students working on any of these topics. If you are interested in undertaking a Master's or Ph.D. project at Brookes, feel free to contact me.

Gender and sexuality

Together with Dr Kat Gupta (Roehampton), I have been working for some time on linguistic approaches to porn studies. Discussions about porn in politics, the media and even academic scholarship are very quick to claim that porn is violent, misogynistic and just plain depraved, but these claims are rarely backed up by systematic evidence of what porn films or stories actually say and show.

We are currently looking at a 1.4-billion-word corpus of online erotica to explore its depictions of various sexual practices (such as how the negotiation of consent happens in porn stories, or how different characters are shown as having agency over what happens during sex) and sexual identities (especially queer, trans and gender-nonconforming people). A key component of this research is problematising the relationship between porn text and the “real world” identities, activities and practices of authors and users.

Branding and organisational communication

My doctoral research focused on popular management books — the kind that infest the shelves at Heathrow — and especially how the authors of these books build up an authoritative image drawing on personal experience, cautionary tales and anecdotes. This interest in the persuasive aspect of corporate communications has extended since into how organisations construct an environmentally-friendly image for themselves, and more broadly into the language aspects of public relations and branding.

I have also worked as a consultant in this last field, advising charitable organisations on how to develop a tone of voice that matches their goals and identity, and how to implement it consistently across different media platforms and interactions with clients.

Other projects