ROME

Starting from the assumption that transparency is not simply the degree of openness used to convey information, but a semiotic construct exploited for its effective release, the unit will investigate this concept from multiple perspectives in a sector that is keenly aware of the need to promote a transparent image, namely, health and medicine. The analysis will be based on corpora representing genres used by corporate and institutional actors operating in health and medicine, with a view to evaluating how they communicate and claim transparency of disclosure. Documents published on the websites of pharmaceutical companies (e.g., annual reports, press releases) will be explored to determine their distinguishing linguistic, discursive and multimodal features, but also to discover if, when, and how it is lawful to actually disclose or withhold important information. On the institutional level, the analysis will focus on detecting the most salient communicative features that characterise the level of transparency in 1) testimonies of patients affected by rare diseases collected by non-governmental patient-driven organisations and made available to a large public and 2) verbal and written communiqués featuring prominent figures within the present-day medical domain. Given that such disclosure-oriented communications are commonly issued in English regardless of their place of production, the unit will also adopt an intercultural perspective that should yield important insights into the role of English in medical and health disclosure practices.