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Dr Virpi Ylänne

Overview

Dr Virpi Ylänne Position: Senior Lecturer Email: Ylanne@cf.ac.uk
Telephone: +44(0)29 208 75049
Extension: 75049
Location: John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cathays, Cardiff

Research Group

Centre for Language and Communication Research

Postgraduate Supervision

I have supervised PhD students on topics such as ‘Functional semantic analysis of Yoruba death notices in English’ (Ayo Banji) and ‘Portraying older age in television advertisements: a comparative study between the UK and Taiwan’ (Chin-Hui Chen) and I currently (co)supervise a doctoral study on older workers’ orientations to workplace age relations and retirement (Sheila Gewolb).

I am particularly interested in receiving PhD proposals from students interested in carrying out research on aspects of age identity and representations of ageing and middle/old age, using qualitative methodologies.

Research Interests

My research interests are in discourse and social interaction, discursive representations of age and lifespan identities, and tourism and globalisation. My most recent work has concentrated on media representations of older people and ageing and discourses of tourist identities.

Selected Publications

Ylänne, V. (ed.) (forthcoming, 2011). Representations of Ageing: Images and Identities.  Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ylänne, V., Williams, A. and Wadleigh, P. M. (2009) ‘Ageing well?  Older people’s health and well being as portrayed in UK magazine advertisements’. International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, 4(2), 33-62.

Ylänne, V.  and  Williams, A. (2009). ‘Positioning age: Focus group discussions about older people in TV advertising’.  International Journal of the Sociology of Language 200, 171-187. 

Thurlow, C., Jaworski, A. and Ylänne, V. (2010). ‘Transient identities, new mobilities: Holiday postcards’.  In C. Thurlow and A. Jaworski . Tourism Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 91-125.  

Thurlow, C., Jaworski, A. and Ylänne, V. (2010). ‘Language crossing and identity play: Television holiday shows’.  In C. Thurlow and A. Jaworski. Tourism Discourse.  Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 163-190.


Publications

REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES

Williams, A., Wadleigh, P. M. and Ylänne, V. (2010) ‘Images of older people in UK magazine advertising: Toward a typology’. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 71(2), 83-114.

Williams, A., Ylänne, V., Wadleigh, P. M. and Chen, C.-H. (2010). ’Portrayals of older adults in UK magazine advertisements: Relevance of target audience’.  Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research 35(1), 1-27.

Ylänne, V., Williams, A. and Wadleigh, P. M. (2009) ‘Ageing well?  Older people’s health and well being as portrayed in UK magazine advertisements’. International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, 4(2), 33-62.

Ylänne, V. and Williams, A. (2009). ‘Positioning age: Focus group discussions about older people in TV advertising’.  International Journal of the Sociology of Language 200, 171-187. 

Ylänne, V. and John, D. (2008). ‘Roles of Medicines Counter Assistants in advice giving in community pharmacies: A discourse analysis’. Pharmacy World and Science 30, 199-207.

Williams, A., Ylänne, V. and Wadleigh, P. M. (2007). ‘Selling the “elixir of life”: Images of the elderly in an Olivio advertising campaign’.  Journal of Aging Studies 21(1), 1-21.

Zhang, Y.B., Harwood, J., Williams, A., Ylänne-McEwen, V., Wadleigh, P. and Thimm, C. (2006). ‘Older adults in advertising: Multi-national perspectives’.  Journal of Language and Social Psychology  25(3), 264-282. 

Thurlow, C., Jaworski, A. and Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2005). ‘”Half-hearted tokens of transparent love”: Host and tourist perceptions of postcard representations’.  Tourism, Culture, Communication 5(1), 93-104.

Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2004). ‘Shifting alignment and negotiating sociality in travel agency discourse’.  Discourse Studies 6(4), 517-536.

Jaworski, A., Ylänne-McEwen, V., Thurlow, C. and Lawson, S. (2003). ‘Social roles and negotiation of status in host-tourist interaction: A view from British television holiday programmes’.  Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(2), 135-163. 

Jaworski, A., Thurlow, C., Lawson, S. and Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2003). ‘The uses and representations of local languages in tourist destinations: A view from British TV holiday programmes’. Language Awareness 12(1), 5-29.  Reprinted as a book chapter in T. A. van Dijk (ed.) (2007). Discourse Studies. Vol. 3. London: Sage, 168-192.

Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2000). ‘Golden times for golden agers: Selling holidays as lifestyle for the over fifties’.  Journal of Communication  50(3), 83-99.

Ylänne-McEwen, V. (1999). ‘“Young at heart”: Discourses of age identity in travel agency interaction’.  Ageing and Society 19(4),417-440.

Ylänne-McEwen, V. (1993). ‘Complimenting behaviour: a cross-cultural investigation’.  Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 14(6), 499-508.

Coupland, N. and Ylänne-McEwen, V. (1993).  ‘Introduction: Discourse, institutions and the elderly’.  Journal of Aging Studies 7(3), 229-235. 

EDITED JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE

Williams, A. and Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2000).  Special issue of Journal of Communication Vol. 50(3) ‘Negotiating lifestyle options in later life.  Guest editor of this issue.

OTHER EDITING

Editor of BAAL News (Newsletter of the British Association for Applied Linguistics) 2002-2004 (issues 70 – 77).

CHAPTERS IN BOOKS

Ylänne, V. and Chen, C.-H. (forthcoming) ‘Consumerism vs. mortality: TV advertising for over 50s life insurance’. In V. Ylänne (ed.)Representations of Ageing: Images and Identities.  Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Thurlow, C., Jaworski, A. and Ylänne, V. (2010). ‘Transient identities, new mobilities: Holiday postcards’.  In C. Thurlow and A. Jaworski . Tourism Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 91-125.  

Thurlow, C., Jaworski, A. and Ylänne, V. (2010). ‘Language crossing and identity play: Television holiday shows’.  In C. Thurlow and A. Jaworski. Tourism Discourse.  Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 163-190.

Ylänne, V. (2008). ‘Communication Accommodation Theory’.  In H. Spencer-Oatey (ed.) Culturally Speaking (2nd ed.).  London: Continuum, 164-185. 

Coupland, N. and Ylänne, V. (2006). ‘Relational frames in weather talk’. In A.
Jaworski, and N. Coupland (eds.), Discourse Reader (2nd ed.). London: Routledge, 349-361. 

Coupland, N. and Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2006). ‘The sociolinguistics of aging’.  In U. Ammon, N. Dittmar, K. J. Mattheier, P. Trudgill (eds.) Sociolinguistics - Soziolinguistik.  Volume 3.  Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2334-2340. 

Coupland, N. and Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2000). ‘Talk about the weather: Smalltalk, environment talk or leisure talk?’  In J. Coupland (ed.) Smalltalk.  London: Longman/Pearson, 163-182. 

Ylänne-McEwen, V. and Coupland, N. (2000).  ‘Accommodation theory: a conceptual resource for intercultural sociolinguistics’.  In H. Spencer-Oatey (ed.) Culturally Speaking. Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures.  London: Cassell Academic/Continuum, 191-214.

ARTICLES IN NEWSLETTERS AND MAGAZINES

Williams, A. and Ylänne, V. (2009). ‘Media representations of older people’.  Sociology Review  91(2), November 2009. 

Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2002) ‘Sociolinguistics Symposium 14’.  Conference report in BAAL News 71, 17-18.

Ylänne-McEwen, V. (1996). ‘Insincere Americans, silent Finns and arrogant Germans: Cross-cultural miscommunication’.  In The Bilingual Family Newsletter, 13(1), 1-2. 

REVIEWS

Ylänne, V. (2006). Review of de Bot and Makoni (2005) Language and Aging in Multilingual Contexts.  Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. In Applied Linguistics  27(4), 760-762. 

Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2004). Review of Boxer, D. (2002) Applying Sociolinguistics.  Domains and Face-to-Face Interaction.  Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  In BAAL News 77, 31-33. 

Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2004). Review of Dann, G.M.S. (2002) The Tourist as a Metaphor of the Social World.  Wallingford: CAB International.  In Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 1(2), 150-152. 

 Ylänne-McEwen, V. (1997). Review of Nussbaum, J. F. and J. Coupland (1995) Handbook of Communication and Aging Research. New Jersey:Lawrence Erlbaum.  In Journal of Sociolinguistics 1(2), 302-305. 

Biography

Originally from Helsinki, Finland, I have been living, studying and working in the UK since 1983. I gained my BA Humanities (Linguistics) from Hatfield, PGCE in TES/FL and MA in Applied Linguistics from University of Wales, Bangor and PhD from University of Wales, Cardiff.

With regard to my research, I was involved in the ‘Language and Tourism as a Global Cultural Industry’ strand of the Centre’s Leverhulme-funded Language and Global Communication project (2001-2006). During 2004-2007 I co-directed (with Dr Angie Williams) a three year, ESRC-funded project on ‘Images of Elders in UK Media: Perceptions and Representations’ which focused on print media and TV advertising, using Content Analysis and Discourse Analysis of focus group discussions as methods. I am currently working on further publications from that research project, including journal articles and an edited volume Representing Ageing: Images and Identities (forthcoming, Palgrave Macmillan). I have organised workshops and symposia around this theme at the Sociolinguistics Symposium (2008) and VII European Congress of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (Bologna, 2011). I have also carried out collaborative research on community pharmacy interactions from a Discourse Analytic point of view.

As far as my teaching is concerned, I’m currently the convenor of a Year 3 module Men, Women and Language and Year 1 module Introduction to Media Communication. I also contribute to Qualitative Research Methods at the MA level and to Year 3 Children, Language and Communication.

My current administrative role is Undergraduate Admissions Tutor for BA English Language, BA English Language and Communication and BA Joint Honours programmes with Language Studies.