Elsevier and the University of Birmingham Launch First Large Scale Investigation Analysing Discourse Used in Interdisciplinary Research

Elsevier and the University of BirminghamElsevier and the University of Birmingham Launch First Large Scale Investigation Analysing Discourse Used in Interdisciplinary Research PR Newswire BIRMINGHAM, England, November 6, 2013 Corpus linguistics analyses applied across selection of Elsevier journal content Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, and the University of Birmingham, UK, the Times University of the Year in 2013, announce the launch of an Investigation of the Discourse of Interdisciplinary Research (IDRD). It is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK). Research is increasingly bringing together scientists from different fields and this investigation aims to analyse how this development is reflected in the language used in scholarly articles and how trends in the discourse used can support research policy development. IDRD was launched on 30 August 2013 and will run for two years under the direction of Dr Paul Thompson, Director of the Centre for Corpus Research at The University of Birmingham. The investigation will be based on content published in Elsevier's journal Global Environmental Change, a highly interdisciplinary journal, and a group of selected control Elsevier journals. Corpus linguistics, a relatively new area of analysis for applied linguistic research, will be used to examine the discourse employed in the journals.