Federica Ferrari is Research Fellow in English Language and Translation at the University of Bologna, Faculty of Political Sciences and holds a PhD in Language and Culture Sciences from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Her expertise is predominantly in the fields of cognitive linguistics, discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. Particularly fascinated by the relation between language/thought and discourse/action she is generally interested in communication practices, with particular emphasis on persuasive phenomena within strategic communication. Her research predominantly focuses on persuasive phenomena within strategic communication and discourse analysis methodologies with a focus on conceptual metaphor as main tool of analysis and transformative device. Particular attention is given to cognitive, pragmatic and interactive features (relation between language and thought, discourse and action, and inter/intra disciplinary relations). More specifically, she has concentrated on the role of conceptual metaphor and emotion in conducting persuasive strategies in security discourse, contrastive corpus-based analysis for identifying and comparing strategic narratives, instances of identity/space in modality and their genre-specific persuasive effect. She has developed a specific competence in conceptual metaphor as a text analysis method, a persuasive tool in political discourse and a transformative device in psycho-practice.
Her publications and participation in o conferences dynamically reflect her research profile. Since her dissertation (“Metaphor at work: the persuasive strategy of G. W. Bush Jr.”), she has further developed existing data and methods (e.g. “Bush versus Blair: Keywords Heading the Nation”. Issues in Political Discourse Analysis, Volume 2, Issue 1 2008: 1-28; ‘Through a woman’s eyes’ narratives of the nation: gender as and beyond a category of analysis, «JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL DISCOURSES», 2012, 7-03, pp. 243 – 262; “At the crossroads between subject and object of research: identity negotiation in the discourse of ‘Psych. doctors’”, in: “Space, place and the Discursive Construction of Identity”, Berne, PETER LANG, 2013, pp. 265 – 293 (LINGUISTIC INSIGHTS). Furthermore, she has introduced interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g. F. Coticchia & F. Ferrari 2009. Security, Old Issues, New Frames: Securitization and Human Security. In Security in the West. Giacomello G. & C. Nation Eds. Vita e Pensiero: 239-270; In lack of ‘Will’? Strategic ‘Future-ness’ and Barack Obama’s experiment: From intention negotiation to will creation and political action in Barack Obama’s e-mail campaigning, «TIME & SOCIETY», 2015, 0(0) September 01/2015, pp. 1 – 28). She has revisited her previous research work into a monograph (Non solo metafore. (De)costruzione della strategia persuasiva di G.W. Bush Jr., Padova, libreriauniversitaria.it edizioni, 2013, pp. 334) and opened it to new areas of inquiry and practice (“The transformative power of metaphor: assessing its (unexplored) potential”. Work-in-progress). She is presently working on a new monograph exploring metaphor and persuasion in strategic communication.
Correspondingly, she has actively participated in national and international research projects and presented papers at national and international conferences.
A full list of her publications is available here.
See the other members of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Research Unit.