Aims of the project

Autism affects the lives of millions in the UK. Feeling accepted is crucial for the successful integration of autistic people in education, work and society and has a significant impact on their mental health. But how accepting is British society towards autism and autistic people?

This project addresses this question through the lenses of the press- which reflects and, more importantly, constructs public views.

The project employs corpus linguistics methodologies to investigate the language used in British newspapers to talk about autism and autistic people. It also examines how the language used to refer to autism and autistic people differs between newspapers and how these representations have changed over time.

Our Corpus in Numbers

The corpus used in this study includes:

● 10 national newspapers, including Sunday editions as well as print and online editions

● A time range of 10 years, between 2011 and 2020

● About 24,000 autism-relevant articles which include roughly 1 million sentences and 19 million words.

Funding

The project is funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant awarded to Dr Themis Karaminis and Dr Costas Gabrielatos (SRG20/201250, Implicit attitudes towards autism in the British Press).

Contact

For enquiries about the project, please contact:

● Research project coordinator: Ursula Maden-Weinberger, [email protected]

● Principal investigators:

Themis Karaminis, [email protected], Twitter: @CogNeuroThemis

Costas Gabrielatos, [email protected], Twitter: @congabonga