Dr Olivia Knapton

Olivia joined the School of Education, Communication & Society as a lecturer in 2016, having previously completed her PhD (2014) and worked as a research assistant in the school.

Qualifications:

• PhD Language, Discourse and Communication, King’s College London
• MA Special Applications of Linguistics, University of Birmingham
• BA English and French Studies, University of Nottingham
• CELTA, Oxford House College

Research interests

Olivia is an applied linguist and discourse analyst with interests in health and science communication.

Her research broadly falls into two strands: firstly, she is interested in the relationship between the discourse used to communicate health advice and environmental issues, and public perceptions/understandings of those issues and their engagement with recommended actions.

Secondly, she researches how people with mental health problems (in particular anxiety disorders) structure their experiences through various cognitive conceptualisations, such as metaphors and schemas. Cutting across her research are discourses of anxiety about health and illness, contamination, disease and risk.

In terms of approach, she explores ways in which to combine meaning from stable, cognitive conceptualisations with meaning from contextually-situated discourse production. 

Teaching

Olivia currently teaches on the following programmes:

• BA English Language and Linguistics
• MA ELT & Applied Linguistics

Postgraduate supervision

Olivia is always looking for new PhD projects to supervise. She likes to combine different methods and different forms of data (both spoken and written). She is particularly interested in the following areas:

• Discourse analysis that includes approaches from Cognitive Linguistics
• Discourse analysis in the field of health (e.g. illness narratives, media analysis, public health communication)
• Critical Discourse Analysis

Further information

To view her publications, visit Olivia's research profile page.