An Audience-oriented Approach to Online Communication in English: The Case of European University Museums’ Websites

Abstract

This thesis investigates online communication in English on European university museums’ websites. It explores the extent to which the production of institutional web texts in English is informed by an audience-oriented approach, and more specifically by the awareness of the need to address readers with different cultural backgrounds and different linguistic needs.

A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches provides the methodological framework for this interdisciplinary research. First, a survey of English-version websites of European university museums is carried out to assess the extent to which the latter produce content in English on their websites. This survey informs the construction of a corpus including a selection of informative and promotional web pages in English from European university museums’ websites. The corpus involves two different contexts: one where English is spoken as an official language and another, more diversified one where English is used as an international language. The text analysis focuses on two aspects: the extent to which texts comply with web writing guidelines, and the extent to which they establish a relationship with their intended readers through stance and engagement features. Finally, individual qualitative semi-structured interviews with museum staff from a subset of museums are conducted. These shed light on the processes underpinning the creation of museum web contents in English and the intended audience for whom such contents are produced.

The results of the survey suggest that university museums in Europe tend to provide an English- version website, especially in countries where Germanic or Ugro-Finnic languages are spoken. In turn, the text analyses generally show an audience-oriented approach to communication: in particular, university museums in the UK seem to be more committed to it than university museums in other countries by structuring texts for readability and establishing textual authority and creating engagement with readers. Finally, insights from the interviews reveal that the production of texts in English does not seem to be informed by the idea of a specific intended audience, and even less so a linguistically diverse audience: textual strategies seem to be limited to the use of a generally clear, simple language, which is supposed to be appropriate for all readers, regardless of their cultural and linguistic background.

These results contribute to current research on the conceptualisation of museum audiences, the processes underpinning museum communication and the use of English as an international language on institutional websites. The research stresses the need for an interdisciplinary exchange between museum and heritage studies on the one hand and linguistics and intercultural studies on the other hand.