Digital Discourse Lab
The Lab provides solutions for the linguistic analysis of the digitised public sphere and allows partners from the realms of research, business, politics and society to access discourse research in a targeted manner. The results include data-based situation reports, innovative analysis practices and the moderation of strategy dialogues.
Solutions and services
The Lab develops solutions for industry partners, always catering to their specific needs and maintaining dialogue, and adopting a step-by-step approach each time:
- Modelling and analysis of digital language environments (discourse patterns, developments, positions and networks)
- Consideration of multilingual discourses (DE, FR, IT, EN)
- Long-term monitoring of language environments in the digitised public sphere
- Evaluation and optimisation of environment analysis practices
- Moderated dialogues on discourse strategies in the digital transformation
Data and methods
With Swiss-AL, the Lab possesses a comprehensive, multilingual data corpus on public communication in Switzerland. This allows for the data-driven identification and analysis of patterns in language use in the public sphere. The Lab also provides advice to industry partners on the evaluation and optimisation of their own data bases (or those of third parties) as well as on environment analysis practices. It also provides the following digital working platforms:
- The Swiss-AL corpus family (Swiss Applied Linguistic Corpora)
- The Swiss-AL Workbench platform
- Transfer workshops (e.g. on Energy Discourses in Switzerland)
- Development of partner-specific analysis and strategy dialogue platforms as required
References and publications
The Lab boasts a successful track record that spans many years. Projects for industry partners allow for the modelling and analysis of language environments in the digitised public sphere in various areas that are relevant for the future. Here are some of the projects we have contributed to:
- Energy Discourses in Switzerland (project website)
- Radicalisation in public discourses (blog post in German)
- Antibiotic Resistance Strategy (StAR) (project report in German)
- Buzzwords in election campaigns: Political buzzwords are better than their reputation and “It is not their growth that is new, but rather how they are linked” (blog posts in German)
- Multilingual COVID-19 discourses (project website)
- The mosaic of discourse landscapes (project website)
- Urban welfare in public discourse (project report in German)
- Automated driving in public discourses (Austria) (project website and report in German)
Lab and team
The Lab is an open structure for industry partners and researchers. For each project, the Lab provides a suitable team and editable data corpora. Together with our industry partners, the core team comprising Prof. Philipp Dreesen, Prof. Julia Krasselt and Prof. Peter Stücheli-Herlach discusses how to approach and set up the respective projects in an effective manner:
- We are your single point of contact (SPoC) for any questions and queries you may have ().
- Two professorships are responsible for connecting the respective needs of industry partners with suitable ZHAW experts: Digital Linguistics and Organisational Communication and Public Spheres.
