Why Do We Need Linguists?

Imagine the preparation for an event like, let’s say, the Super Bowl. Coaches, players, trainers, and everyone else involved work constantly, together and alone, to be at peak performance when the big game rolls around. Now, imagine if, one day at practice, the coach just asked the players how they felt about their plays instead…

Are DTC TV Ads "Scaring" Patients?

A recent BBC article (“Medicine Information Leaflets ‘Too Scary’ says Experts”) illustrated how word choice and framing of side effects on drug inserts may sway patients towards not taking their medication. But why? The Academy of Medical Sciences report, which the BBC quotes, shares that patients may be confused, anxious, and/or off-put by the current…

Ling 101: Power and Agency

Welcome back! At this point, we’ve covered a good amount of ground on the basics of healthcare discourse analysis. Namely we’ve talked about how linguistics: is integral to good market understanding, can shape understanding with footing and alignment has rules that we can break or follow But what about power and control?

Trends in Oncology: Metaphor Basics

The treatment discussion as a whole has been impacted by the launch of new classes of treatment and new products over the past year. One third (10/30) of newly approved molecules in the European Union in 2016 were drugs for use in oncology. As we continue our look at trends across Verilogue’s conversation database, one…

2017 ACC, Opinions, Feedback and More from Our Docs

At this year’s American College of Cardiology (ACC) Annual Meeting, medical professionals from all over the world gathered to unite in the continuous fight for heart health. While I was unfortunately unable to attend, we did get to speak with several of our panel physicians who experienced the congress first hand. This year we had…

Ling 101: How to Decode Conversational Roles

Last month we shared with you how certain linguistic methodologies can provide meaningful content to shape your marketing decisions. Now that you know how linguistics can be applied, let’s dive deeper and talk more about the first big idea of discourse analysis. Discourse analysis at it’s core can be defined as studying the way language is used in context.  Instead…