Introduction
In a relatively recent model of communication, the so-called incremental model (Stalnaker, 1999), it is assumed that communication mainly tends to reduce the differences in the knowledge of the interlocutors by increasing the common ground between them, i.e. their stock of shared knowledge. Nonetheless, a comprehensive definition of knowledge is needed: epistemology focuses on fundamental issues of the nature of knowledge, traditionally defined as ‘justified true beliefs’ (for a selection of work in epistemology, see, for example, Bernecker and Dretske, 2000), i.e. as the consensual beliefs of an epistemic community. Van Dijk (2003: 86) maintains:
Producing and comprehending discourse not only involves the processing of meaning, but presupposes vast amounts of knowledge. Notions such as topics, global and local coherence, implication, presupposition, schematic structures and a host of other properties of discourse, all require a knowledge component. And not only the meaning of discourse requires a knowledge component, but also its forms. […I]t is therefore crucial to understand how exactly powerful groups and institutions (such as media, universities, and so on) manage and express their knowledge in public discourse.
A critical approach to knowledge1 is also a study of the relations between knowledge and varied forms of linguistic structures implied in knowledge accessibility and communication. One of these means is represented by the analysis of Information Structure (IS). IS relates two major functions of language: as a means to transmit knowledge and as a vehicle of social and linguistic interaction. Linguistic research on information structure is based on the assumption that natural languages are equipped with formal means of signaling the basic distinction between known and unknown pieces of information, and a number of other distinctions. The study of information structure is mainly concerned with lexical and propositional content and with the way such content is transmitted. It is therefore intended to be a component of grammar, more specifically of sentence grammar, i.e. as a determining factor in the formal structuring of sentences. Thus, IS can be formally manifested in aspects of prosody, in special grammatical markers, in the form of syntactic (in particular nominal) constituents, in the position and ordering of such constituents in the sentence, in the form of complex grammatical constructions, and in certain choices between related lexical items. Consequently, IS intervenes at all meaning-bearing levels of the grammatical system and its analysis can be centered on the comparison of semantically equivalent but formally and pragmatically divergent sentence pairs, such as active vs. passive, canonical vs. topicalized, canonical vs. clefted or dislocated, subject-accented vs. predicate accented sentences, among others (Lambrecht, 1994: 6).
Despite the relevance of issues related to IS, research investigating how information is structured in specialized texts has so far been largely overlooked in favor of a closer examination of specific linguistic phenomena occurring at phrase or discourse/genre level. Consequently, there has been a dearth of clause-level research. It is worth mentioning an individual study carried out by Shirley Carter‑Thomas and Elizabeth Rowley-Jolivet in 2001 who analyzed the syntactic differences characterizing oral and written scientific discourse and the role played by IS. Nonetheless, a systematic study leading to generalizations on how information is structured in specialized informative texts and how knowledge is accessed by expert and/or lay audiences is still lacking. Indeed, the present research is an attempt to bridge the gap between theoretical assumptions about IS and their practical applications to the syntactic analysis of specialized texts in the field of health communication.
These analyses are also complemented by an examination of the communicative purpose, editorial strategies, and other text-external factors of semi-specialized health texts, in order to account for their sociopragmatic, institutional, and disciplinary considerations.
The present paper therefore addresses the following research questions (RQs):
- How does an informative/specialized magazine cope with the different linguacultural backgrounds of its potential audience(s)?
- What are the most prominent text-internal and text-external features characterizing health communication and emerging genres of science popularization and dissemination?
- In terms of information structuring and knowledge accessibility, have the canonical IS features undergone highly or marginally relevant changes as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic [and the communication strategies related to it]?
- In terms of frequency and statistical relevance, what are the most recurrent IS features and syntactic structures of the postpandemic health communication?
- How do editorial structure, tag distribution, keyword profiles and deictic patterns characterize the rhetorical and audience-oriented strategies within public health communication?
In order to address these questions, a very preliminary study has been carried out on sample data extracted from a corpus (still under construction) of editorials and articles published in an online magazine (https://eurohealthnet-magazine.eu/) specifically compiled as part of a larger project investigating knowledge accessibility across genres in specialized communication set up in English as a lingua franca (ELF)/EU contexts.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 1, a brief introduction to EuroHealthNet and the central aims on which the PRIN 2022 PNRR project is grounded precedes an outline of basic concepts pertaining critical genre analysis and health communication as well as descriptive approaches to information structuring in specialized texts. Section 2 is dedicated to the description of the data collection and analysis approaches employed in the study, while Section 3 shows the results of a preliminary study of both text-internal (i.e. via information structuring) and text-external factors (i.e., via tag, keyness and deictic analysis) within the multiperspective and multidimensional framework provided by critical genre analysis (Bhatia, 2017). Finally, the implications of the present findings for future research on popularization and knowledge accessibility are discussed in Section 4.
1. Background
1.1. Overview of the larger study
The present study presents preliminary findings from initial analyses of the uses of ELF to enhance accessibility and acceptability within the public health messaging. It sits within a larger PRIN 2022 PNRR study funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU entitled “Acceptability strategies through variations of English as a lingua franca in multicultural and multimodal discourse types” (P2022AFTEJ, CUP D53D2302065 0001) which involves two research teams at the Universities of Salerno and Salento in Italy. The main focus of the larger study conducted by our research team at the University of Salerno is eHealth. At the turn of the century, Gunther Eysenbach (2001: 1), editor of the Journal of Medical Internet Research, defined eHealth as “an emerging field in the intersection of medical informatics, public health and business” characterized by “a commitment for networked, global thinking, to improve health care locally, regionally, and worldwide by using information and communication technology.” Within this ongoing digitalization process, which intensified with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, health messaging emanating from global, supranational, national, and local institutions has carved out a new, critical space in our daily lives. Accordingly, today, the ubiquitous presence of health recommendations and scientific findings across media channels and increasingly on emerging digital platforms has become commonplace. Seeing as the effective communication of health promotion information and services can impact positively on health outcomes, whereas ineffective communication can put people’s lives at risk (Ochieng, 2013), the larger study seeks to contribute to this critical, rapidly evolving phenomenon by casting light on the features that both characterize digital health communication and are necessary for it to be effective, accessible, and acceptable.
To this end, our research unit has begun investigating the strategies used within the multimodal digital health communication of Europe-based public health institutions and projects aimed at enhancing access to healthcare services and the dissemination of health-related information and expertise. A primary premise of our study is that, for it to be effective, the communication of these public institutions must be attentive, sensitive, and receptive to the diverse linguacultural backgrounds and levels of knowledge of specialized discourses of their heterogeneous audience, which includes but is not limited to health institutions, health professionals, and the general public. Within the framework of this larger study, the present paper focuses on specific aspects, including the analysis of EuroHealthNet magazine as a primary data source, the exploration of information structuring strategies and the application of critical genre analysis. By examining these elements, this study aims to serve as a foundational step toward addressing the broader objectives of the overarching research project concerning the creation of accessible, acceptable, and effective digital health communication by public health institutions.
1.2. Critical genre analysis and health communication
Genre studies, which encompass a range of frameworks used to analyze various textual genres within academic, professional, workplace, and other institutional contexts, involve analyses that can range from a detailed linguistic examination of texts as discursive products to broader investigations into the dynamic complexities of communicative practices in professional settings (Bhatia, 2017). Outsiders to a discourse community may struggle to follow specialized communication, even if they understand the language used (Swales, 1990). Of interest in this regard is the characterization of professional communities as communities of practice, which consist of individuals who have a common concern or passion and seek to improve their abilities through regular interaction. Lave and Wenger (1991) describe that the concept of legitimate peripheral participation serves as a bidirectional link between the acquisition of knowledgeable skill and the development of identity and the (re)production of these communities. Through a social process characterized by increasingly centripetal participation, newcomers gradually become established members, or ‘oldtimers,’ as they gain legitimate access to the ongoing practices of the community. Over time, newcomers develop a deeper understanding of the practice by engaging in peripheral participation in the community’s activities. The acquisition of knowledgeable skill is intrinsically tied to assuming the identity of a practitioner and becoming a full participant within the community. Indeed, Lave and Wenger (1991: 56) maintain that in any given community of practice, “the process of community reproduction – a historically constructed, ongoing, conflicting, synergistic structuring of activity and relations among practitioners – must be deciphered in order to understand specific forms of legitimate peripheral participation through time”.
Another related and pertinent aspect is highlighted by Candlin et al. (2002), who emphasize that professional communities consist of diverse participants with varying perceptions, beliefs, and positions regarding the community’s goals, membership criteria, discourses, texts, and practices. They argue that understanding this heterogeneity requires a comprehensive analysis of texts and their conditions, influenced by the lived experiences and disciplinary identities of members. This necessitates a shift from purely linguistic descriptions of genres to a broader exploration of the social and historical contexts influencing the production and reception of texts, posing challenges for research methodologies.
These aspects demonstrate challenges that, in turn, accentuate the importance of genre knowledge in achieving communicative efficiency, as it goes beyond recognizing linguistic forms to understanding the conceptual and rhetorical structures established within discourse communities (Widdowson, 1998). In essence, communication in specific contexts is not just about grammatical accuracy but involves understanding the conventions and goals of a particular discourse community. This requires knowledge of how professionals conceptualize and discuss issues to achieve their objectives. Many significant aspects of genre construction and interpretation in disciplinary and professional contexts are thus closely tied to the shared understanding of context. As a result, context has assumed an increasingly central role in genre analysis, redefining genre as “a configuration of text-internal as well as text-external resources, highlighting two kinds of relationships involving text and context” (Bhatia, 2017: 4).
In response to the aforementioned challenges and to the novel conceptualizations of genre, Bhatia (2017) developed a framework for genre analysis that emphasizes both intertextual relationships centered primarily on text-internal properties, and interdiscursive relationships resulting primarily from text-external factors concerned with interactions and appropriations across genres, professional practices, and disciplinary cultures. Bhatia (2017: 5) has argued that there is a dearth of research on interdiscursivity – defined as “the function of appropriation of generic resources, primarily contextual in nature, focusing on specific relationships between and across discursive and professional practices as well as professional cultures” and “more innovative attempts to create various forms of hybrid and relatively novel constructs by appropriating or exploiting established conventions or resources associated with other genres and professional practices” (Bhatia, 2017: 35), particularly within the realm of genre studies. He further maintained that it is not sufficient to analyze intertextual aspects of discursive practices but “it is more important that we address the role such discursive practices play in the achievement of professional actions” (Bhatia, 2017: 5).
To fill these gaps, Bhatia (2017) developed a four-level model of discourse realization that encompasses his interest and effort in emphasizing modes of action and thought. In the model, the first level is discourse as text, which refers to the analysis of surface-level text-internal properties of discourse or information structures, which was discussed earlier in this paper, and is not primarily focused on context. The next level, discourse as genre, is interested in broader conceptualizations of context not only related to how text is constructed, but also how it is interpreted and used in particular contexts to obtain specific ends. The third level of discourse realization is professional practice, by which Bhatia (2017) refers to actions deemed as successful achievement of the typical objectives of a specific professional community often studied by means of the analysis of interdiscursive exploitation of linguistic and other semiotic resources within sociopragmatic space. The fourth level, professional culture, “indicates that appropriate forms of professional and disciplinary identities are constructed and played out to ensure pragmatic success of the discursive and professional action in question.” The author concludes that “any theory or framework that chooses to underemphasise any of these four aspects of language use is unlikely to offer a sufficiently comprehensive and insightful understanding of a specific genre used as part of a professional activity to achieve specific professional, disciplinary and institutional objectives” (Bhatia, 2017: 35).
Thus, critical genre analysis (CGA) is a methodological approach, as Bhatia (2017: 9) explains, that “focuses on demystification of professional practice through the medium of genres”. It acknowledges that members of professional communities, while adhering to shared values and genre conventions, possess the flexibility to incorporate personal intentions within these frameworks. The primary goal of CGA is to describe, explain, and account for the discursive performance of professionals, emphasizing the importance of understanding the underlying motivations and structures that shape professional genres and actions. Unlike traditional critiques, CGA does not aim to evaluate but rather to elucidate the conventional responses and interdiscursive behaviors typical of professional communities. CGA distinguishes itself by its objective to unpack the complex, multiperspective, and multidimensional nature of professional practices by means of a rigorous and objective integration of genre analysis with various methodological frameworks and multiple perspectives, for instance, considering both the intentions of the author and the reception by the audience. This multiperspective analysis is crucial for understanding discursive conventions in professional settings, making CGA a comprehensive and nuanced approach to studying professional communication.
1.3. Descriptive approaches to information structuring
This study adopts Lambrecht’s (1994) approach to grammatical analysis, in which the function of a given lexicogrammatical structure is not interpreted compositionally, in terms of the meanings of its parts, but globally, in terms of the formal contrast between the entire structure and semantically equivalent alternative structures provided by the grammar.
Methodologically, the study is an attempt to combine insights from both formal and functional approaches to grammatical analysis. More specifically, the main assumption is that the relationship between the internal structure of sentences and the extralinguistic contexts in which sentences are used as units of propositional information is governed by rules of sentence grammar in a grammatical component called information structure or information packaging: the “relationship between speaker’s assumptions and the formal structure of the sentence is taken to be governed by rules and conventions of sentence grammar, in a grammatical component which I call information structure, using a term introduced by Halliday (1967)” (Lambrecht, 1994: xiii). In other words,
“information structure deals with the way the information conveyed by the discourse in question is packaged into informational units within and between clauses by the enunciator (writer or speaker), in order to satisfy two communicative goals: i) making the information conveyed by the discourse easier for the reader/hearer to understand; ii) indicating what the enunciator considers to be the most important or salient items of information” (Carter-Thomas and Rowley-Jolivet, 2001: 2).
In order to make information easier to be accessed and processed, speakers tend to place at the beginning of the clause what they are speaking about, the theme, which usually contains given (or recoverable) elements that other speakers/interlocutors can easily identify. New elements of information concerning this theme will figure afterwards in the rheme.
This type of organization with given information first and new information second, reinforced by the principle of end-weight and final focal stress, is considered to be the unmarked option for organizing the information. On the syntactic level, unmarked information packaging arrangements are often rendered in English by a Subject + Verb + Object (SVO) structure, where the grammatical subject of an active verb provides the thematic anchorage, with the verb complex and object constituting the new or rhematic part of the clause. However, this SVO order is not always sufficient or suitable to create a coherent text. To respect unmarked information structure, the speakers may use a different syntactic arrangement. They may also choose to deliberately reverse the usual information packaging arrangements in order to give certain elements of information particular salience or focus2.
Even though the definition of information structure is not one on which scholars unanimously agree depending on the different topics and related terminology adopted, two more general approaches have emerged (Arnold et al., 2013: 2): the former stresses the importance of background/known information shared by two speakers compared with the new informational load/content to be conveyed (expressed by the dichotomy given/new); the latter reflects the distinction between the topic (i.e. information that is backgrounded or assumed) and the focus (i.e. information that is highlighted or focused). Broadly speaking, these binary approaches have received considerable attention within theoretical linguistics, where researchers argue for different types of information-structural divisions (e.g. topic-comment; topic-focus; rheme-theme), as well as gradient representations of information status along a continuum such as salience, prominence, or accessibility in the framework of functional linguistics (see also Givón, 1983, who characterizes information along a continuum of topicality that is very similar to what other researchers call ‘accessibility’). Therefore, both models seem to be effectively congenial to the purposes of the present study and reasonably representative of its theoretical background. The following sections will briefly touch on the linguistic as well as the contextual features which have been the main foci of the present study.
1.3.1. Text-internal factors
Previous individual studies (for a complete overview of past literature see Arnold et al., 2013) on information structure have been so far especially concerned with how it relates to four linguistic phenomena: 1) referential form, i.e. how people refer to entities in the world which is determined by the salience, or accessibility of a referent in a given context and accessible when they are topical in the recent discourse and mentioned in syntactically prominent positions like the subject position; 2) morphological marking to indicate grammatical roles (including noun/verb morphology and focus particles like also, merely, even and only); 3) word order or constituent order by means of different constructions, following the universal generalization that given or more accessible information precedes new or less accessible information, namely a. Active: The cat swiped the dog on the nose. b. Passive: The dog was swiped on the nose by the cat. c. Heavy-NP-shifted: The cat swiped on the nose the dog that had frightened it. d. Topicalization: The DOG the cat swiped on the nose, while the ferret got away. d. Prepositional Dative: The cat gave a warning to the dog. e. Double object Dative: The cat gave the dog a warning. f. Cleft constructions (including three main types: IT-clefts, Pseudo-clefts, ordinary WH clefts (WH)/reverse WH clefts (RWH): It was the dog that the cat swiped on the nose; 4) inversion or fronting (In a language such as English in which the SV(O) sequence is the canonical (or unmarked) word order), the reversal of this sequence has traditionally been referred to by the name of inversion triggered by some element other than the subject being placed in clause initial position; 5) the existential there construction whose communicative function is to introduce a brand-new referent into the discourse and to make it cognitively accessible even as the theme of the subsequent clause. Noun groups in scientific research articles are often heavily pre- or postmodified. Placing the noun group in rhematic position, thanks to the existential there construction, avoids overloading the clausal theme, thus respecting the principle of end-weight; 6) prosody in oral discourse (which is not the subject of the present paper). In particular, features 3c, 3f and 5 were taken into account for the present study.
1.3.2. Text-external factors
In the study of genre analysis, particularly within the framework of CGA, text-external factors are pivotal in shaping the construction, interpretation and use of genres. These factors, which include discursive practices, professional practices, and professional cultures, provide essential context that influences how genres are understood and employed within specific professional communities (Bhatia, 2004). Discursive practices encompass the norms and conventions of language use within a particular community, while professional practices refer to the standardized procedures and routines that define professional behavior. Professional cultures refer to the broader values, beliefs, and norms that characterize a professional community. Research by Swales (1990) and Bazerman (1994) underscores the importance of these external elements, highlighting how they constrain and enable interdiscursivity – the blending and borrowing of elements across different genres – within a given professional context. For instance, Hyland (2000) discusses how academic genres are shaped by the interaction between disciplinary conventions and institutional expectations, demonstrating that an understanding of these external factors is essential for a comprehensive analysis of genre. Similarly, studies by Fairclough (1992) and van Dijk (2009) illustrate how power dynamics and social structures external to the text influence genre conventions and their reception. Thus, incorporating an awareness of text-external semiotic resources provides a more nuanced understanding of genre as a socially situated phenomenon, and reveals the complex interplay between textual features and the broader socioprofessional landscape.
Text-external factors include a wide array of social, cultural, institutional, and historical elements that shape the construction, interpretation, and usage of texts. Swales (1990) emphasized the importance of understanding the discourse community and its shared goals and values as critical text-external factors that shape genre conventions. Bhatia (1993) further elaborated on the significance of professional practices and organizational norms, arguing that genre analysis must account for the specific professional context in which a text is situated. This perspective aligns with the work of Bazerman (1994), which stressed the historical and social dimensions of genre, emphasizing how genres evolve in response to changing societal needs and expectations. More recently, researchers like Askehave and Swales (2001) and Devitt (2004) have expanded the focus to include the interrelationship between genre and broader sociopolitical and economic contexts, suggesting that genre analysis must consider the power dynamics and ideological influences that pervade professional and institutional settings. CGA, as discussed by Bhatia (2004), incorporates these text-external factors to offer a multiperspective analysis, aiming to demystify the discursive practices within specific disciplinary communities. By integrating these external influences, CGA seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of genre as a socially situated and contextually bound phenomenon, thereby offering a richer and more nuanced interpretation of professional communication.
2. The present study – Methods
Drawing on the notions of IS and CGA introduced above, the study compares and investigates two written scientific/informative genres – namely articles and editorials published in an online magazine covering different health-related domains – of selected issues of the EuroHealthNet magazine.
2.1. Materials
EuroHealthNet is a not-for-profit partnership comprising organizations, institutes, and authorities dedicated to public health, disease prevention, health promotion, and reducing health inequalities. The mission of EuroHealthNet is to contribute to building a sustainable, fair, and inclusive Europe through healthier communities and to address health disparities within and between European states. Their vision is to create a society where all citizens can enjoy their fundamental right to the highest attainable standard of health, regardless of race, religion, gender, or socioeconomic status.
EuroHealthNet publishes an online magazine biannually, which is disseminated to over 12,000 professionals via email and social media platforms. The aim of the magazine, as listed on the website, is “to inspire professionals working in health promotion, tackling inequalities, or other related fields” by highlighting “the most interesting projects and developments in the field of health equity, public health, and health promotion from within the partnership and beyond.” Regular content includes detailed reports on active or recently evaluated projects, analyses of contemporary issues, strategic approaches, and innovative ideas driving health promotion. Additionally, the magazine features summaries of relevant research, publications, academic work, and professional development opportunities.
The present study explores 140 articles included in fourteen editions of EuroHealthNet’s magazine, which are available online (https://eurohealthnet-magazine.eu/category/editions/). Two editions were published yearly from 2017 to 2023. Each issue contained on average 10 articles, with Edition #22 published in December 2023 and Edition #13 published in July 2019 having the highest representation with 12 articles each. The textual content of each of the selected articles, excluding author names, notes, references and dates, constituted a 148,495-word (169,730-token) corpus, named The EuroHealthNet Magazine (EHN) corpus. This larger corpus was divided into two small corpora consisting of 126 magazine articles (133,603 words | 152,709 tokens) and 14 editorials (14,891 words | 17,021 tokens). Other information about and within both article types, including the titles, visual elements, and other tags applied, was also collected.
In order to address the research questions outlined in the introduction, two subcorpora were constructed for each text type (editorials and articles) based on magazine issues published during the pre-Covid-19 period (issues 9 to 14, 2017-2019) and the post-Covid-19 period (issues 15 to 22, 2020-2023).
2.2. Procedure
2.2.1 Data annotation and tag extraction
To investigate the IS of the texts selected from the corpus, given the different size of the subcorpora, all the data were first normalized on a 1000 basis to make them easily comparable according to the following procedure: the frequencies for each structural type were searched for in each corpus to determine the number of occurrences of a given feature per one thousand words, so that the raw frequency was divided by the total number of words in the corpus section and the result multiplied by one thousand.
Moreover, to test the significant difference in frequency between the two corpora of different sizes, the UCREL log-likelihood (LL) wizard (http://corpora.lancs.ac.uk/clmtp/2-stat.php) was used to determine the saliency of specific features. The subsections of the corpus were then automatically parsed and annotated by using the language analysis tools provided by the VISL website (https://edu.visl.dk/visl/en/parsing/automatic/). More specifically, the VISL interface provides both morphosyntactic and semantic annotations of constituent structures by automatically assigning tags of inflection, syntactic functions and constituent dependency3. The starting point of the analysis was the list of syntactic features characterizing a varied constituent order marking different constructions and theme-rheme relations. Those features were searched for in the corpus and then mapped onto VISL tags by analyzing the constituent structures of the clauses. Once annotated, tags/instances for each feature could be automatically extracted from the corpus with the application of the AntConc concordancer and then manually mapped to the corresponding structural patterns selected for the study to see how IS affects the use of particular marked constructions, namely cleft constructions (including three main types: it-clefts, pseudo-clefts, ordinary WH clefts (WH)/reverse WH clefts (RWH), existential there constructions and NP heaviness (prenominal/postnominal modifier = @>N / @N<). Table 1 shows the inventory of syntactic features/constructions and corresponding VISL tags selected for the study.
Table 1: Inventory of syntactic features/constructions and corresponding VISL tags selected for the study
| Type of construction | POS | Functional Category | Definition |
| Existential there constructions / + NP heaviness | N ADV |
@>N / @N< ADV @F-SUBJ> |
prenominal/postnominal modifier adverbial argument / formal subject |
| IT-/ WH-Cleft constructions | PERS NEU <rel> |
@SUBJ @F<SUBJ> INDP S/P @ACC> §TH §§THEME |
Formal subject Independent pronoun, Sing./Pl., accusative/direct object, theme |
| Constituent order (Heavy NP-shifted) |
<rel> | INDP @SUBJ | Independent pronoun |
Once the number of occurrences for each feature and subcorpus were identified, the results were also matched/compared for text type and time span under study to test the actual saliency of IS.
2.2.2. Preliminary genre analysis and text‑external factors
This analytical portion of the study, which aimed at beginning to scratch the surface of our preliminary review of the text-external factors, involved structure, tag, keyword, and deictic analysis. Our rationale for this approach was that these analyses illuminate how sociopragmatic, institutional, and disciplinary considerations shape the content and communicative strategies of the genre. These methods reveal thematic priorities, audience positioning, and interdiscursive dynamics, offering insights into how the genre appropriates and integrates resources to meet the needs of the magazine’s diverse stakeholders in a multidisciplinary context.
In order to identify the general structure of the two genres contained in the EHN corpus, two subcorpora of editorials and articles were manually coded using NVivo 15. Next, we considered tags, seeing as they offer insights regarding the editorial priorities and thematic focus areas of the editions of the EuroHealthNet magazine under study.
Subsequently, keyness analysis was performed to extract keywords, or words that occur with unusual frequency that aid in “the understanding of the main concepts, topics or attitudes discussed in a text or corpus” (Gabrielatos, 2018). This method involves comparing the frequency lists of a larger, more general reference corpus and a smaller, more specialized target corpus (in this case, the EHN corpus). The reference corpus used for this study was English Web 2021 (enTenTen21), which is readily available in Sketch Engine (www.sketchengine.eu), a corpus manager and text analysis software tool. EnTenTen21, constituted by texts collected from the internet between 2021 and 2022, was used as a reference corpus for the keyness analysis. A list of 20 single-word keywords was generated. Then, enTenTen21 also includes two preloaded subcorpora useful for our analysis: a subcorpora comprised by EU domain .eu texts (178,200,834 tokens) – which aligns with the geographical context of the material under study, and a subcorpora comprised by texts that fall within the topic Health (480,090,118 tokens). These were also used as reference corpora for keyness analysis.
To complement the IS pre/post-Covid analyses, this analytical phase also analyzed the two subcorpora of editorials and articles differentiated by time (pre- and post-Covid-19 period). First, keyness analysis was performed on the pre-Covid subcorpus using Sketch Engine, with the post-Covid subcorpus as the reference. Next, NVivo’s word‑frequency query with synonyms was used to identify the main themes of each subcorpora. Since several of the most frequent words generated numerous synonyms, or “similar words”, for presentation purposes (Table 6) each synonym set was reduced to its most salient examples.
Lastly, as Bhatia (2017) holds,
[…] there are several identities that a professional may be required to negotiate and give expression to simultaneously in the same piece of discourse: his professional identity as a member of a particular disciplinary community; organizational identity as a member of a specific organization or institution; his social identity as a valued member of one or more social groups; and of course his individual identity as indication of his self-expression.
He thus emphasizes how crucial it is to examine the ways in which discursive practices in professional organizations determine and redefine professional, disciplinary and organizational identities. To this end, we also completed a deictic analysis focused on the analysis of pronoun use. Due to space constraints, this analysis was limited to a focus on the first-person plural pronoun ‘we’. The concordance function of Sketch Engine was used to generate a random sample of 10 concordance lines in which ‘we’ is the key word in context (KWIC). A close analysis of the output followed to investigate context-based deictic positioning within EuroHealthNet magazine.
3. Results
3.1. Information Structuring Results
Example 1 shows a sample of the annotation process and corresponding tags mapped onto existential there-constructions extracted from the ARTICLES_2017 parsed subcorpus.
| (1) | There [-There] <heur> <DL:med> <idf> <DL:med> <nhead> N S NOM @SUBJ> #4->5 |
| is [be] <DL:med> <DL:med> <mv> V PR 3S @FS-<ACC #5->2 | |
| a [a] <indef> ART S @>N #6->7 | |
| need [need] <percep-f> <DL:med> <idf> <DL:med> <nhead> N S NOM @<SC #7->5 | |
| for [for] <np-close> PRP @N< #8->7 | |
| a [a] <indef> ART S @>N #9->10 | |
| system [system] <cli> <system> <DL:med> <idf> <DL:med> <nhead> N S NOM @P< #10->8 | |
| which [which] <clb> <rel> INDP S @SUBJ> #11->12 | |
| gives [give] <v.contact> <DL:med> <DL:med> <mv> <np-close> V PR 3S @FS-N | |
Figure 1 shows a sample of existential there-constructions as the formal, existential subject of the clause extracted from the AntConc KWIC list for there (n=120).
Figure 1: KWIC list for the node there
WH-Cleft constructions are exemplified in Figure 2 below, extracted from the AntConc KWIC list for what (n=127) along with the corresponding VISL tags.
Figure 2: Different annotations for the node what as an independent pronoun (non-inflecting INDP) and as a determiner pronoun (inflecting DET)
Finally, raw (Rf) and normalised frequencies (Nf) of the features under study were calculated to determine the actual saliency they have in each subcorpus. Indeed, the significance test proves to be particularly useful when comparing two or more corpora and observing trends of specific linguistic features/structures along a given timeline since it can tell us whether the results can be treated as significant. The higher the LL is, the less likely it is that the result is a random coincidence/occurrence. The LL must be above 3.84 for the difference to be significant at the p < 0.05 level (also called the 95% level or probability value).
Table 2 shows the overall results from the normalization and log-likelihood calculations.
Table 2: Overall results of normalization and log-likelihood calculations
| SOURCE | there constructions + heavy NP |
IT-/WH-Cleft constructions | Constituent order (THAT+Heavy NP-shifted) |
Log -likelihood score |
|||
| Rf | Nf | Rf | Nf | Rf | Nf | % | |
| SUBC_ARTICLES 2017 | 120 | 2.47 | 3 | 0.06 | 0 | 0 | 214.3 |
| 5 | 0.10 | ||||||
| SUBC_ART2019ON | 3 | 0.03 | 2 | 0.02 | 2 | 0.02 | |
| SUBC_EDITORIALS 2017 | 4 | 0.68 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 1.36 | 10.89 |
| SUBC_EDITORIALS 2019ON | 1 | 0.10 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.21 | |
The analysis reports that existential there-constructions in the ‘prepandemic’ articles were more widely attested as recurrent explanatory speech-like strategy than in the contemporary and later articles. The same can be said for the editorials dating back to both periods under consideration and this observation is counterintuitive given the increasing need for more accessible and sustained information from both professional and lay audiences as the pandemic crisis has definitely revealed. IT/WH-cleft constructions are confirmed as the less preferred form of left dislocation of the theme-rheme dichotomy in professional/EuroHealthNet communication.
3.2. Results: Editorial strategies and themes
3.2.1. Editorial and article structure
Two separate structural analyses were performed for the editorials and the articles. The fourteen EuroHealthNet editorials exhibit a highly regularized eight-move structure: (1) an opening situational hook that orients readers to a timely event or policy frame; (2) problematization that presents trends, statistics, and concrete harms; (3) attribution or causal framing that locates responsibility in structural, political, or commercial forces; (4) an explicit evaluative authorial position; (5) evidence and illustration, typically mobilizing short case studies, projects, and referenced reports drawn from the issue’s contents; (6) prescriptions or calls to action addressed to policymakers, practitioners, or readers; (7) broader implications linking the specific problem to cross-sectoral agendas (e.g. SDGs, economy-of-wellbeing); and (8) a closing signpost that introduces the issue’s articles and invites engagement. Across the corpus the editorials display recurrent linguistic cues that realize moves, including policy and time markers and evaluative lexis for openings and positions; numerical references and contrastives for problematization; agentive phrasing for attribution; project and/or report names for evidence; and deontic modals for prescriptions.
By contrast, articles display a related but distinctive structure overall. Two separate genre families were identified that characterized the articles, or policy strategy reports and reports on public health issues. While the former are typically framed in terms of case studies that described and promoted a policy or program enacted in a specific European context, the latter generally involves syntheses of research publications or accounts of experts’ insights into a given public health matter. Notwithstanding these differences, the two subgenres shared a common sequence of moves: an opening summary that either hooks the reader with a provocative question or provides a brief abstract of the article; a presentation of the context and/or the problem; and a description of the project, intervention, or research publication. Some articles include a description the methodology used to monitor the outcomes of the project or study, but most prioritize the results and outputs, mainly suggesting the advantages of the project (and therefore exhibiting a promotional and practice-oriented slant). Closings of the articles vary: some endend with practical implementation guidance, while others closed with future directions or description of funders and partners. Overall, the articles mirror the editorials’ emphasis on evidence and prescription, while foregrounding empirical description and program implementation.
3.2.2. Tag analysis
Within the 596 tags that were applied to the articles, 140 were the editions of the articles and 456 were thematic. Table 3 displays the distribution of thematic tags, which reflect the content focus of the articles.
Table 3: Thematic tag distribution
| Tag | Applications | Percentage |
| Practice | 69 | 49.3% |
| Health Inequalities | 58 | 41.4% |
| Health & Social Systems | 55 | 39.3% |
| Policy | 40 | 28.6% |
| Childhood & Adolescence | 32 | 22.9% |
| Research | 29 | 20.7% |
| NCDs | 28 | 20.0% |
| Behaviour & Addiction | 26 | 18.6% |
| European & International Affairs | 26 | 18.6% |
| Environment & Sustainability | 24 | 17.1% |
| Mental Health | 24 | 17.1% |
| Working Life & Social Protection | 19 | 13.6% |
| EuroHealthNet Editorials | 12 | 8.6% |
| Ageing | 11 | 7.9% |
| CHAIN | 2 | 1.4% |
| Look who’s talking | 1 | 0.7% |
The high prevalence of the most frequently assigned tag “Practice,” which indicates emphasis on practical applications, actionable insights, and real-world implications of health topics, suggests that the magazine targets practitioners and policymakers seeking practical solutions. The next most common tags are “Health Inequalities” (58 articles) and “Health & Social Systems” (55 articles), which underscore a sustained editorial commitment to understanding disparities in health outcomes, the functioning of health systems, and social determinants of health. Together, these emphases align the magazine with broader public-health discourses that prioritize equity and structural reform, and position EuroHealthNet as a critical voice advocating for systemic change.
While the relatively high frequency of articles tagged under “Policy” (28.6%) reflects the magazine’s interest in the regulatory and legislative aspects of health systems and public health, the presence of tags such as “Childhood & Adolescence” (22.9%), “Behaviour & Addiction” (18.6%), “Mental Health” (17.1%), and “Ageing” (7.9%) reflects the magazine’s broad coverage across life stages and behavioral and clinical concerns. Although tags like “Environment & Sustainability,” “Mental Health,” and “Ageing,” are less frequently assigned, they accentuate the magazine’s attention to emerging health challenges and the evolving landscape of public health. The inclusion of the tags “CHAIN” and “Look who’s talking,” albeit minimally applied with 1.4% (2 articles) and 0.7% (1 article) respectively, indicates specialized or niche topics that receive occasional coverage.
Thus, these data suggest EuroHealthNet magazine’s broad yet focused approach to public health, with a marked emphasis on practical solutions, health inequalities, and systemic issues. The editorial strategy appears designed to both inform and influence practitioners and policymakers, while also addressing a wide range of complex health challenges relevant to professionals and the broader public in a nuanced and comprehensive manner. The high score in the type-token ratio of the corpus corroborates this interpretation: the observed lexical density reflects considerable lexical diversity in the magazine, which is consistent with the breadth of issues revealed by tag distribution.
3.2.3. Keywords
Table 4: Keywords
| Item | Freq. (focus) | Freq. (reference) | Score | |
| 1 | eurohealthnet | 112 | 211 | 658.62 |
| 2 | ncds | 44 | 17153 | 203.54 |
| 3 | wellbeing | 320 | 555817 | 188.16 |
| 4 | bcis | 30 | 3448 | 168.33 |
| 5 | determinant | 115 | 229641 | 143.49 |
| 6 | whp | 26 | 6305 | 139.87 |
| 7 | inequality | 300 | 770225 | 130.94 |
| 8 | nijz | 21 | 189 | 124.34 |
| 9 | best-remap | 20 | 1 | 118.83 |
| 10 | bci | 28 | 26229 | 116.4 |
| 11 | intersectoral | 21 | 4921 | 115.5 |
| 12 | riga | 42 | 72183 | 114.39 |
| 13 | noknok | 19 | 76 | 112.8 |
| 14 | diatrofi | 18 | 25 | 107.01 |
| 15 | nutri-score | 18 | 636 | 105.96 |
| 16 | prolepsis | 18 | 829 | 105.63 |
| 17 | bzga | 17 | 106 | 100.99 |
| 18 | non-communicable | 22 | 19401 | 99.327 |
| 19 | periodontitis | 21 | 16710 | 98.107 |
| 20 | fari | 17 | 2545 | 97.145 |
With respect to the single-word keywords, shown in the table above, the keyword analysis indicates that the EHN corpus is highly specialized in discussing health-related topics, particularly in areas like non-communicable diseases (NCDs – 44 occurrences; non-communicable – 22 occurrences), and wellbeing (320 occurrences), socioeconomic determinants of health (e.g. inequality; cost-of-living; workplace health promotion), and specific public health initiatives or programs. Examples of the latter include the Best-ReMaP (20 occurrences) Joint Action led by the National Institute of Public Health of Slovenia, NokNok (19 occurrences), the FARI (17 occurrences) project developed by the Taranto Local Health Authority, and the Greek school-based food aid and healthy nutrition program DIATROFI (18 occurrences) developed by the Prolepsis (18 occurrences) institute. BCIs also present an interesting instance because it stands for the Behavioural and Cultural Insights (BCI) Unit of the World Health Organization, when the acronym is also widely used in other sectors (such as to stand for brain–computer interface). The high keyness scores of specific terms reflect the corpus’s focus on topics that are less commonly discussed in general English but are central to the discourse within the EuroHealthNet articles. Moreover, specialized terminology includes determinant (115 occurrences) to refer to causal factors of health outcomes, intersectoral (21 occurrences) to refer to collaboration across different sectors, nutri-score (18 occurrences) related to food labeling and health, and periodontitis (21 occurrences), which is the medical term for gum disease. These findings underscore the specialized nature of the language used in the EuroHealthNet publications, reflecting their niche in public health promotion and policy discussions. Also of note are those terms that refer to specific geographical locations and organizations in the European realm, such as the capital of Latvia, Riga (42 occurrences), the Slovenian National Institute of Public Health Nijz (21 occurrences), and the German Federal Centre for Health Education BZgA (17 occurrences). Their appearance indicates that the corpus focuses on the European territory in particular.
Table 5: Keywords: Reference subcorpora
| EU domain | Health Topic | |||||
| Item | Freq. (focus) | Freq. (ref) | Score | Freq. (ref) | Score | |
| 1 | EuroHealthNet | 112 | 72 | 470.7 | 0 | 660.9 |
| 2 | Riga | 42 | - | - | 9 | 243.9 |
| 3 | NCDs | 44 | 35 | 217.5 | 473 | 131.1 |
| 4 | WHP | 26 | 34 | 129.5 | 80 | 132.2 |
| 5 | BCI | 28 | 69 | 119.6 | - | - |
| 6 | diplomacy | 27 | - | - | 146 | 122.7 |
| 7 | Best-ReMaP | 20 | 0 | 118.8 | 0 | 118.8 |
| 8 | periodontitis | 21 | 9 | 118.7 | - | - |
| 9 | wellbeing | 320 | 2671 | 118.0 | 6583 | 128.2 |
| 10 | Roma | 38 | - | - | 380 | 125.5 |
| 11 | HPV | 38 | 166 | 116.4 | - | - |
| 12 | café | 34 | - | - | 378 | 115.9 |
| 13 | NokNok | 19 | 0 | 112.9 | 0 | 112.9 |
| 14 | DIATROFI | 18 | 0 | 107.1 | 0 | 107.1 |
| 15 | Nijz | 21 | 30 | 106.8 | 0 | 124.7 |
| 16 | cost-of-living | 19 | 21 | 101.0 | 41 | 104.1 |
| 17 | FARI | 17 | 5 | 98.4 | 4 | 100.3 |
| 18 | nutri-score | 18 | 16 | 98.2 | 30 | 100.8 |
| 19 | prolepsis | 18 | 19 | 96.7 | 2 | 106.6 |
| 20 | BZgA | 17 | 9 | 96.3 | 7 | 99.7 |
Compared to the broader analysis with the full enTenTen21 corpus, this targeted analysis reveals stronger alignment with terms specific to public health and European initiatives. For instance, terms like Best-ReMaP, NokNok, and DIATROFI consistently rank highly across all reference corpora, reinforcing the EuroHealthNet corpus’s unique focus on European health projects and terminology. The inclusion of geographically specific terms such as Riga and institution names like Nijz and BZgA further underscores the European-centric discourse. Additionally, the comparison highlights how certain terms like WHP (workplace health promotion), cost-of-living, and nutri-score maintain their prominence when contextualized within health topics, suggesting their relevance to both specialized and broader public health discourses. This refined keyness analysis validates the earlier findings while offering greater specificity about the EuroHealthNet corpus’s alignment with regional and thematic domains of health communication.
3.2.4. Pre/post-Covid comparison
The keyword analysis comparing the pre-Covid subcorpus to the post-Covid subcorpus revealed, predictably, the emergence of pandemic lexis in the latter period (i.e., pandemic, Covid-19, lockdown). The top ten most frequent words with synonyms, generated by NVivo’s word‑frequency query, revealed commonalities in the two subcorpora. ‘Health’ is in the top spot in both subcorpora, and practice-oriented lemmas such as support (from the top 3rd spot pre-Covid to the top 2nd after the onset of the pandemic) and work (from the 4th to the 3rd) retain prominent positions, indicating editorial continuity around support measures and continuing efforts to address public health issues.
Table 6: NVivo word-frequency query (synonym-expanded): ranks of shared top-10 items in the pre- and post‑Covid-19 subcorpora
| Word | Similar Words (NVivo) | pre-Covid rank | post-Covid rank |
| health | e.g., health, sanitary, well, wellness | 1 | 1 |
| support | e.g., accompany, assistance, back, champion, defend, endorses, fund, sustain | 3 | 2 |
| work | e.g., act, exercise, function, influence, operate, play, run, shape | 4 | 3 |
| social | e.g., socialise, socially, societal | 8 | 4 |
| people | e.g., mass, peoples | 10 | 6 |
At the same time, several terms show notable upward moves: people rises markedly (+4 positions), and new practical, material vocabulary, or ‘food’, ‘living’, ‘need’, ‘use’, ‘make’, enters the post-Covid top 10, signaling an increased emphasis on material conditions, needs, service use/implementation and food-system concerns. Conversely, institutional and promotional terms (‘education’, ‘national’, ‘issues’, ‘activity’, ‘promotion’) drop out of the top 10, suggesting a relative decline in formal educational framing, national-level positioning, and generic promotion language. Taken together, these shifts suggest that while the magazine sustained its practice-oriented core, its postpandemic discourse pivoted toward social-support and lived-experience frames and toward implementation-focused topics.
3.2.5. Identities
In line with the aforementioned results, a critical identity aspect that emerges in the EuroHealthNet magazine refers to European identity. One way in which this identity was enacted was by means of specific location-specific terms. The ninth edition of the magazine was particularly dense with specific location-specific terms in its titles, which are one of the first pieces of information that attract readers’ attention and whose word selection can influence readers’ understandings of events and participants involved. In the following table, we see reference to Europe in the first article, which is the editorial, and European in the third article, and reference to different locations across Europe in all but one article.
Table 7: Titles of the ninth edition of EuroHealthNet
| Title | Date |
| A more pro-health Europe on the horizon? | Jun 22, 2017 |
| Monitoring the Dutch National Prevention Program | Jun 20, 2017 |
| HiNEWS project: Health Inequalities in European Welfare States. | Jun 20, 2017 |
| Smoke-Free Sports Stadia: A case study in implementing protective measures in the absence of legislation. | Jun 20, 2017 |
| The Swedish Experience of developing and Implementing a national mental health strategy, and efforts to prevent suicide. | Jun 20, 2017 |
| Spanish strategy on health promotion and prevention and its local implementation. | Jun 20, 2017 |
| Combating food insecurity & Promoting Healthy Nutrition in schools in disadvantaged areas across Greece: The DIATROFI Program | Jun 20, 2017 |
| Senior volunteering – Social inclusion of older people through volunteering | Jun 16, 2017 |
The first-person plural can be used to induce interpreters to conceptualize group identity, either as insiders or as outsiders. We were interested in examining how the organization portrayed itself so we analyzed the use of pronouns in the editorials. The concordance function of Sketch Engine was used to generate a random sample of 10 concordance lines of editorials in which “we” is the KWIC, reproduced in the table below.
Table 8: Random sample of 10 concordance lines of editorials where “we” is the key word in context
| Query:[lempos_lc=="we-d"];Random sample:10 | ||
| Left | KWIC | Right |
| It became clear that we, as health promotors, need to “sit at the table”, because | we | are “on the menu”. |
| For this reason I am delighted to present you with a diverse selection of articles in this 10th edition of the magazine, all of which reflect a proactive approach to working across sectors and adopting new solutions to long-term problems. | We | look at a new initiative in Sweden to help public services become more results-oriented and at how social impact bonds can help fund public health interventions. |
| From Finland | we | learn about the significance of art and culture in promoting health and well-being. |
| In our two articles on healthy diets for children, […] | We | also learn about what makes food aid and nutrition programmes in schools successful, with new results from the DIATROFI programme in Greece. |
| From Pharos (expert centre on health inequalities), | we | hear about resources and methods to give migrant children the best possible start in their new homes by collaborating with schools, parents, and the children themselves. |
| Working in the health silo is no longer feasible. | We | can no longer ignore action on the so called “SEEDs” (social, economic, environmental determinants) of health. |
| Colleagues from the Egas Moniz Higher Education Cooperative explain the issue, and what | we | can do to move forward. |
| How do such cuts threaten the health and wellbeing of those most vulnerable in our societies particularly children and young people? | We | hear from Dr Sumina Azam’s (Policy Lead and Deputy Director in Policy and International Health at Public Health Wales and Vice-President of EuroHealthNet) team, Dr Louisa Petchey and Manon Roberts, who reflect on how generally the cost-of-living crisis impacts public health. |
| As Belgium is a country that appreciates a wide variety of beer brands, you can imagine what an enormous amount of beer options it now offers. | We | seem to be surrounded and “seduced” by very unhealthy food environments, a situation that continues to worsen. We need to design and ensure healthy food environments are affordable for all. |
| In our EuroHealth article, | we | consider the drawbacks of relying too much on the “business as usual” approach. |
The use of the pronoun ‘we’ across editorials is a strategic linguistic choice that serves to construct a strong professional, organizational, and social identity for the magazine. Professionally, it underscores the collective expertise and responsibility of the magazine’s contributors. For instance, in “It became clear that we, as health promoters, need to ‘sit at the table’,” the pronoun ‘we’ is used to express a shared professional responsibility and the need for active involvement in decision-making processes. In addition to emphasizing their role as proactive agents in the health sector, it defines the identity of the group as ‘health promoters’. Furthermore, in lines like “We also learn about what makes food aid and nutrition programmes in schools successful,” the use of ‘we’ indicates a collective engagement in learning and professional development. It suggests that the magazine’s editorial team, along with its readers, are part of an ongoing process of acquiring and sharing knowledge, thus reinforcing a professional identity rooted in continuous improvement and adaptation.
Organizationally, ‘we’ presents the magazine as a unified entity with a collaborative mission. Although oftentimes the author of the editorial uses ‘I’, the singular is often combined with the plural to speak with a unified voice, representing the magazine as a cohesive entity. This is evident in lines such as “We look at a new initiative in Sweden” and “We hear from Dr Sumina Azam’s team”. In these instances, ‘we’ conveys that the magazine’s content and viewpoints are collectively endorsed by the organization, rather than being the opinion of a single author. This collective voice helps establish the magazine’s authority and credibility as an organization committed to public health.
Socially, it cultivates a sense of community and shared purpose among the readers, the author and the editorial team, positioning the magazine as a partner in addressing public health challenges. The use of ‘we’ fosters a sense of inclusion and solidarity with the readers, creating a shared identity between the magazine’s team and its audience. For instance, in the concordance line “We seem to be surrounded and ‘seduced’ by very unhealthy food environments”, the use of ‘we’ includes both the author and readers in a common social experience. This inclusive language builds a sense of community around shared challenges and goals, particularly in relation to public health issues. Then, in lines such as “We need to design and ensure healthy food environments are affordable for all,” ‘we’ serves to unite the readers and the magazine’s team in a common goal. It frames the discussion of health issues as a collective challenge, suggesting that everyone – authors, readers, members and stakeholders – has a role in finding and implementing solutions.
4. Discussion and future directions
This preliminary study aimed at investigating EuroHealthNet magazine’s approach to addressing diverse audiences, its prominent linguistic features in health communication, and the potential impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its IS strategies. Regarding the first research question, EuroHealthNet magazine addresses the diverse backgrounds of its European readership by maintaining a high level of specialization through its focus on health-related topics anchored in the European context. Additionally, it ensures cultural relevance by spotlighting localized programs across Europe and catering to a professional community of stakeholders with content that resonates with the varied cultural settings of its audience.
For the second question, the analysis of linguistic features highlights distinctive strategies in health communication and emerging science popularization genres. Referential constructions, such as there-constructions, were more prevalent in prepandemic editorials, suggesting a shift in style over time. Cleft constructions, which are typically associated with spoken or conversational genres, were notably absent, underscoring their limited role in written formats like editorials and articles. Variations in constituent order were observed more frequently in dialogic or conversationally oriented genres. Regarding the third research question, the saliency tests comparing pre- and postpandemic subcorpora revealed a decline in unmarked there-constructions and marked constituent orders, such as that-clause with heavy NP-shifting, in the postpandemic period. These shifts may reflect evolving communication strategies in response to the pandemic’s influence on health discourse. As for the fourth research question, while the study identified trends and variations in IS features, the current data sample is insufficient to draw definitive conclusions about the most recurrent IS strategies in postpandemic health communication.
With respect to the fifth question, the preliminary analysis of editorial structure, tag distribution, keyword profiles, and deictic patterns indicates a coherent, audience-oriented rhetorical strategy. Editorials follow a highly regularized eight-move sequence that systematically frames issues for policy-minded readers, while articles fall into two related subgenres (policy strategy reports and public health issue reports) that foreground empirical description, evidence, and practical implementation. Thematically, tag distribution privileges Practice, Health Inequalities, and Health & Social Systems, signaling an explicit orientation toward practitioners and policymakers and a sustained commitment to equity and systemic reform. Keyword analysis corroborates this specialized focus: high-scoring items such as wellbeing, NCDs, Best-ReMaP, DIATROFI, and institutional acronyms (e.g. Nijz, BZgA) index European projects, programs, and technical discourse rather than generalist health talk. A pre/post-Covid comparison shows the expected rise of pandemic lexis but, more importantly, a shift toward material-and-support vocabulary (e.g., food, living, need, use) and lived-experience frames, suggesting a postpandemic tilt toward implementation and social-support concerns. Finally, deictic and pronominal patterns, notably the strategic use of we and frequent location-specific references, work to construct a professional, organizational, and European identity that both inclines readers toward collective engagement and reinforces the magazine’s credibility as a practitioner-oriented, policy-engaged forum.
Future research will expand the dataset and deepen the investigation to determine whether these text-internal and text-external features are consistent elements of ELF health communication texts. Indeed, this study marks an initial, preliminary step in understanding the linguistic and structural strategies employed in EuroHealthNet magazine and their evolution over time. By focusing on information structuring features, tags, keywords, and deictic markers, we have begun to scratch the surface of emerging genres in health communication and the interplay between text-internal and text-external factors. This ongoing exploration aims to provide more robust insights into the evolving nature of medical and health communication in the European context.
