The Language of Health Promotion in British and Russian Digital Media: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The research explores the language of health promotion used in Health matters and Tak zdorovo – the national healthcare websites of the UK and Russia. The objective is to assess readability of the British and Russian texts as well as to reveal language properties and cultural implications of health promotion in national digital media. The comparative design of the study involves qualitative (contextual and interpretative) and quantitative (Compleat Lexical Tutor v.8.5 and Flesch-Kincaid grade) methods. The topic distribution results show that physical activity, healthy eating and weight control, tobacco smoking, alcohol dependence, mental health are raised in both cultures, however, the British corpus puts more emphasis on mental health issues compared to the Russian one. There are differences in 'positive' vs 'negative' approach in covering alcohol consumption issues. The findings on readability reveal higher rates of lexical density and lexical variety in the Russian corpus in comparison to the British one. However, the overall lexical coverage and readability index in the British (K-3) and Russian corpora (SIS – 8.68) are equally low, which means that the language of health promotion in both cultures is easy to understand. The Russian language of advice demonstrates frequent use of imperatives. The British corpus employs less categorical recommendation forms including modal verbs, create partnering communication styles and demonstrate a higher use of visual forms of health promotion. The findings revealing differences in rhetoric strategies (rational reasoning in British digital media vs emotional reasoning in Russian digital media) can be attributed to national and cultural implications.