Elena MATTEI

Elena Mattei holds a PhD and is Doctor Europaeus in Digital Humanities for English Studies (SSD: L-LIN/12; University of Verona, grade: excellent). Her research interests focus on the collection, annotation and analysis of tourism multimodal corpora on social media, with particular attention to the development of a multidisciplinary and mixed methodological framework integrating data-driven semiotics into social semiotics and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The social mission and main objective of her research is to conceive and apply sistematically, empirically both methods and tools to foster multimodal literacy. The final aim is specifically to promote the active design of counternarratives or 'cybersituations' for social change, particularly in terms of environmental protection and informed use of social media.

Shortlisted for the ADHO Paul Fortier Prize as an emergent scholar conducting high-quality research in the field of Digital Humanities, she has published in the class A journal Iperstoria and in DH venues, and holds workshops on empirical research in the field of AI-generated visual semiotics and data-driven, multimodal linguistics with corpora (link to software developed with G.E. Pibiri). She has also presented her research at various international conferences and coedited a volume on the multidisciplinary doctoral conference she co-organized at the University of Verona in 2021. She is collaborating with her former co-supervisor, John A. Bateman (Professor of English Applied Linguistics, PhD in Artificial Intelligence), and with the scientific committee of the Master “English for International Business and Global Affairs” at the University of Verona. She taught a Digital Humanities course and in the postgraduate course “English for the World of Work”. She is currently teaching English Language within the Master's Degree Programme "Comparative International Relations" at Ca' Foscari, University of Venice.

In the future, she would like to investigate how the capitalist, romantic gaze of the postmodern traveler and tourists’ contemporary desire for exclusivity in the uncontaminated nature may be leveraged by discourse specialists to cultivate environmental awareness and promote sustainable behavior, in an attempt to reverse consumerism and the ecological crisis (Urry and Larsen 2011; Stibbe 2014). She would like, in this sense, to create a Grammar of multimodal eco-discourse.

Academic background and professional experience

- PhD in Digital Humanties for Multimodal English Linguistics and Tourism (SSD: L-LIN/12)

- Bachelor's and Master's degree in Foreign Languages for Communication in Tourism and Commerce (LM-38; 110L/110); semesters abroad at University of Massachusetts Boston and Universitaet Passau; interniship at the travel agency One Food Abroad in Dublin

- Teaching qualifications to apply for tenured positions in public schools (English and German languages) and experience as teacher at private schools

- Adjunct Professorship of Digital Humanities at the University of Verona (including course planning, design of materials and lab activities). Course title: Advanced Digital Humanities Lab (36h). Specific title: Laboratory for the Statistical and Computational Analysis of Linguistic Data and Multimodal Communication on Digital Media. Degree programme: Languages and Literatures for Publishing and Digital Media (L-11)

- Adjunct Professorship of English Language at Ca' Foscari, University of Venice. Degree Programme: Comparative International Relations

- Adjunct Professorship of Business English at Ca' Foscari, University of Venice. Degree Programme: Business Administration and Management

- Research Assistant (RA) at Universitaet Bremen under the supervision of Prof. John A. Bateman. Activities: 1) data modeling with R and empirical research for the statistical measurement of variance and correlations between visual communicative strategies in multimodal corpora of tourism discourse (PCA, CA, Factor Analysis, Regression, Chi-Square); 2) implementation of appropriate inter-coder reliability measures to test the degree of reproducibility of the tagging procedure; 3) meetings with the Bremen and Groningen research groups.

- Invited lecturer at various universities (see complete list here)

- Final exam committee member and secretary at University of Verona

- Co-supervisor of Master’s theses at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Verona. Research topics: Tourism discourse and multimodal communication for persuasive purposes; Made in Italy & Country of Origin effect (COO) marketing studies. Research methods: Systemic Functional Linguistics; Appraisal Analysis; Tourism Discourse; Corpus Analysis; Grammar of Visual Design

- Support in the compilation of HITRADE database (Ca' Foscari University of Venice)

Marketing Jobs (industry and non-profit)

- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) training and specialization at Web Leaders Srl. Hard skills and activities: 1) Keyword search and analysis to increase website visibility in Google search results and traffic; 2) data analysis and design of diagrams, statistical reports supported by particular software technologies; 3) promotional content analysis and design for SEO purposes; 4) content spinning; 5) creation of data banks, including composers; 6) .html codes for the realization of homepages and thousands of landing pages with the design and inclusion of original, persuasive, visual and linguistic content. Main software used: Google Analytics, Screaming Frog, SemRush, CMS, Google Search Console, DreamWeaver, Keywordtool.io, Yoast SEO.

- R&D Brand Strategist for Made in Italy at Click Generation Srl: PhD based scientific research, analysis and design of English multimodal communication for the digital promotion of SME and Italian brands, with particular attention to sustainability projects. Clients: Scalo Fluviale; Balsamini Impianti s.r.l.; Corallo s.r.l.; Engineering Process Construction s.r.l.; Iniziative Energetiche. Fields of Research: ▪ Systemic Functional Linguistics; ▪ Corpus Analysis; ▪ Empirical Multimodality; ▪ Cognitive Linguistics; ▪ Conceptual Metaphor and Image-schema Theories; ▪ Sociology of Promotional Communication; ▪ Empirical and Social Semiotics; ▪ Statistical and Critical Methods for Digital Communication.

- Market research and report, also with support of AI technologies

- (Non-profit) Communication strategist/consultant, web designer, social media manager

Italian National Research Project DIETALY at Ca' Foscari (Destination Italy in English Translation and Language over the Years)

PI and supervisor: Prof. Mirella Agorni

Mediating Destination Italy in early 20th century English tourism translation: Compiling and analysing parallel and multimodal corpora from a diachronic perspective. 

As the tourism industry remains a crucial driver of global and local economies, intercultural and translation studies are exploring practices of mediation of a country’s image to meet other cultures’ expectations and perceptions (Agorni 2016). The current project investigates early English tourism translation practices in Italy and the promotional materials produced by ENIT (Italian National Tourist Board) in the 20th century. The research aims to illustrate if and how promotional materials have evolved throughout the interwar (1919-1939) and post-war period (1947-1957) in response to socio-economic events and to align with the linguistic and cultural norms of a low-context audience (Katan 2016).

To this aim, a diachronic analysis of multimodal tourism communication will be conducted. The database comprises 450 documents of promotional translated materials retrieved from ENIT's archives, including 200 bilingual documents (ITA - ENG). By combining corpus techniques and empirical, multimodal frameworks, we will attempt to track changes at the linguistic and cultural level. Text-mining software combined with Machine Translation (MT) tools powered by AI as well annotation techniques and coding for statistics will specifically help us understand if and how (translated) promotional materials have evolved to meet different linguistic and cultural expectations of the target audience.

PhD research - summary

Her DH project focused on carrying out a multidisciplinary investigation into tourism boards' multimodal communication strategies through both quantitative and qualitative methods, with particular focus on text-image relationships in the digital promotion of the traveling experience on Instagram and company websites. It investigated specifically how discourse specialists systematically combine linguistic resources with digital photography to design particular representations of the travel experience and convey specific, positive attitudes towards holiday destinations that depend on contextual variables, including the multisemiotic ensemble's medium of dissemination. Indeed, multimodal strategies were demonstrated to vary significantly according to both the medium's communicative role in the marketing funnel of persuasion and the social needs of the corresponding audience in the journey towards purchase (Manca 2016; Shuqair and Cragg 2017; Ayeh et al. 2012). 

To this aim, multimodal data were collected from Instagram accounts and official websites in order to compile different corpora. Her work includes the systematic, manual annotation of multimodal corpora and the statistical measurement of visual and linguistic strategies. A SFL-based, intersemiotic theoretical framework allowed for the detection of patterns of material regularities, which reflect new socio-semiotic, generic trends in the discourse semantics and legitimization strategies of digital tourism narratives.

Her thesis wishes also to emphasize the importance of data-driven multimodal research in the burgeoning field of Digital Humanities from a methodological, sociological, and multisemiotic perspective. The results of this study may also lead to an informed understanding as well as awareness of how ideologies are perpetuated in the current digital sphere and may be resisted. Consequently, this may support individuals in their attempts to challenge the legitimacy of established views, opinions, and passive acceptance of them, and contribute to the construction of counternarratives (Ahearn 2001; Plant 1992).

More info may be found below or here.

Publications

Monographs

(In press) Mattei, Elena. The Meaning of Images: Testing the Grammar of Visual Design on Instagram Travel Photography. Book series Pathways to Multimodality (edited by John Bateman, Jana Pflaeging, Hartmut Stöckl, Janina Wildfeuer). DeGruyter, 2024.

(In press). Mattei, Elena. The Language of Persuasion on Instagram: A Systemic Functional Grammar of Multimodal Tourism Discourse. Routledge.

PhD dissertation

· Mattei, Elena. "Multimodal Corpus Analysis of Digital Tourism Narratives: A Data-driven Approach Based on Systemic Functional Linguistics and Social Semiotics." Tesi di dottorato, Università degli Studi di Verona, 2023. https://iris.univr.it/handle/11562/1098826. 598.

Edited volumes

· Fontana, Sara, Elena Mattei, Paola Peratello, Fabio Ramasso, e Stefano Ambrosini, edited by. Margins and Forgotten Places. Edizioni dell’Orso, 2023. ISBN: 978-88-3613-358-1. https://www.ediorso.it/margins-and-forgotten-places.html

Chapters

· Mattei, Elena (forthcoming). "Integrating Computational and Statistical Methods into the Humanities: Investigating Multimodal Tourism Discourse with Empirical Social Semiotics and SRI Tagging Software." London: Bloomsbury, 2024 (Editor: Stefania Maci, book series Language, Data Science and Digital Humanities)

· Fontana, Sara, Elena Mattei, Paola Peratello, Fabio Ramasso, e Stefano Ambrosini. "Introduction." Margins and Forgotten Places. Edizioni dell’Orso, 2023. IX-XXII. ISBN: 978-88-3613-358-1. https://www.ediorso.it/margins-and-forgotten-places.html. 280.

Scientific articles

· Mattei, Elena. "Approaching Multisemiotic Phenomena with Empirical Multimodality: Exploratory Analysis of Tourism Narratives through Data-driven Labeling." Frontiers in Communication 9 (2024): 1-9. doi:10.3389/fcomm.2024.1355406. Special Issue honoring John Bateman’s work. Title: Drawing Multimodality’s Bigger Picture: Metalanguages and Corpora for Multimodal Analyses

· Mattei, Elena. "Theory and Method for the Statistical Investigation of Multimodal Promotional Practices in the Digital Era." Interdisciplinary Digital Engagement in Arts & Humanities (IDEAH) 3.2 (2023): 1-32. doi:10.21428/f1f23564.7921b725

· (Fascia A) Lorenzetti, Maria Ivana, and Elena Mattei. "People-building Strategies in Trump’s and Biden’s Political Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis between Populism and Anti-Populism." Iperstoria 20 (2022): 351-382. doi:10.13136/2281-4582/2022.i20.1233

· Mattei, Elena. "Investigating Multisemiotic Persuasive Practices by Integrating Computational Methods and Complementary Theoretical Frameworks." Centre for Information Modelling, Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities (2023): 1-2. www.zenodo.org/record/8107451

Reviews

· Mattei, Elena. "Review of 'English Tourism Discourse: Insights into the Professional, Promotional and Digital Language of Tourism' by Stefania M. Maci." Iperstoria 18 (2021): 229-233. DOI: 10.13136/2281-4582/2021.i18.1095

· Mattei, Elena. "Review of 'Understanding Abstract Concepts across Modes in Multimodal Discourse: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach' by Elżbieta Górska." Iperstoria 15 (2020): 428-432.

· Mattei, Elena. "Review of 'Systematically Working with Multimodal Data: Research Methods in Multimodal Discourse Analysis' by Sigrid Norris." Iperstoria 15 (2020): 423-427.

· Mattei, Elena. "Review of 'Doing Linguistics with a Corpus: Methodological Considerations for the Everyday User' by Jesse Egbert, Tove Larsson, and Douglas Biber.” Iperstoria 16 (2020): 370-373.

· Mattei, Elena. "CLAVIER 2019 conference 'Knowledge Dissemination and Multimodal Literacy: Research Perspectives on ESP in a Digital Age' Report." Associazione Italiana di Anglistica, Newsletter 99 (2020): 20.

Dictionary entries

· Emam, Ahmed Mahmoud, Mahmoud et al. "*/ˈpass-u/ s.m." Voce nel dizionario elettronico Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Analyse et Traitement Informatique de la Langue Française (ATILF, CNRS, Université de Lorraine, 2023). www.atilf.fr/DERom/entree/'pass-u

Blogposts for the Master "English for International Business and Global Affairs" (Univerisity of Verona)

Mattei, Elena. Blogpost “What Digital Marketing is and why it should figure among your top professional skills” Master English for International Business and Global Affairs, Università di Verona.
Mattei, Elena. Blogpost “The fundamentals of e-commerce – What you need to know as a communication specialist and why” Master English for International Business and Global Affairs, Università di Verona.
Mattei, Elena. Blogpost “Getting a real taste for the wine (industry): the role of wine business in international trade and the power of negotiation skills required to succeed in this globalized market” Master English for International Business and Global Affairs, Università di Verona.
Mattei, Elena. Blogpost “The professional role of translators and interpreters in intercultural business negotiations” Master English for International Business and Global Affairs, Università di Verona.
Mattei, Elena. Blogpost “Proficiency in English writing skills: enhancing employability in the professional setting” Master English for International Business and Global Affairs, Università di Verona.
Mattei, Elena. Blogpost “Why and how to start working on your intercultural communication skills in today’s globalized society” Master English for International Business and Global Affairs, Università di Verona.
Mattei, Elena. Blogpost “A brand new course has started” Master English for International Business and Global Affairs, Università di Verona.
 

Academic presentations at national and international conferences (long papers)

2024

Mattei, Elena. “Mediating Destination Italy in early 20th century English tourism translation: Compiling and analysing parallel corpora from a diachronic perspective”, in Translation and Cultural Sustainability: Challenges and New Avenues, Salamanca University, 16-19 Aprile 2024.

Mattei, Elena. "Persuasion through systematic appeals to the romantic pristine: Fulfilling the need for control and escape through multimodal tourism discourse on Instagram", in Beyond Words: Persuasive Narratives and Multimodal Discourse, Vilnius University, Kaunas Faculty, Lithuania, 24–25 October, 2024.

2023

Mattei, Elena. “Exploring practices of mediation in early 20th century English tourism discourse in Italy: A computer-assisted lexical analysis”, in TRADITUR, Córdoba, 6-8 Novembre 2023, p. 44 Book of Abstracts. Panel dell’Unità di Ricerca di Ca’ Foscari (PRIN DIETALY).

Mattei, Elena. “May the consumerist-based framing of nature as Other be reversed for sustainability promotion? An empirical multimodal study of Instagram tourism discourse”, in CLAVIER 2023: Framing nature: discourses past and present of nature and the environment, A sustainability perspective, Milano, 23-25 Novembre 2023, p. 79 Book of abstracts.

Mattei, Elena. “Investigating Multisemiotic Persuasive Practices by Integrating Computational Methods and Complementary Theoretical Frameworks”, in DH2023: Collaboration as Opportunity, Graz, Austria, 10-14 luglio 2023.

Mattei, Elena. “Exploring Digital Tourism narratives with a Data-driven Approach: The Perpetuation of the romantic gaze in Instagram Photography”, in 11th International Conference on Multimodality, London, 27-29 settembre 2023. Proposta di panel del gruppo di ricerca BreGroMM “in lieu of a Festschrift for John A. Bateman”.
 

2022

Mattei, Elena, “Corpus-Based Analysis of Multimodal Tourism Narratives on Instagram: Evoking Romantic Gazes of Evaluation as Means of Persuasion.”, in 43e colloque du GERAS: Multimodalité et multimédialité en anglais de spécialité: enjeux discursifs, culturels, didactiques et traductologiques, Université Grenoble Alpes (France), 24-26 marzo (abstract).

Mattei, Elena, “Multimodal Tourism Narratives in the Instagram Era.”, in Approaches to Digital Discourse Analysis (ADDA3), University of South Florida (St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.A.), 13-15 maggio, p. 64 Book of Abstracts.

Mattei, Elena, “Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis of Transitivity and Evaluative Practices as Means of Persuasion in the Instagram Representation of the Tourist Experience.”, in XIII International CORPUS Linguistics Conference - Specialized Discourse and Translation Studies in Corpus Linguistics (CILC2022), Università di Bergamo, 26-28 maggio, p. 47-48 Book of Abstracts.

Mattei, Elena, “Investigating Contemporary Multimodal Discourse Practices by means of Digital Methods: The Challenge of Reliability and Reproducibility in a Multidisciplinary Perspective.”, in Past, History and Memory in Language and Literary Studies (PhD conference), Università di Verona, 23 – 25 giugno, p. 33 Book of Abstracts.

Mattei, Elena, “Rethinking Multimodal Tourism Narratives on Social Media: Leveraging the Capitalist, ‘Romantic Gaze’ of the Postmodern Traveler to Promote Sustainability.”, in Simposio Internacional. Sostenibilidad en el sector turístico: implementación y comunicación, Instituto Cultura y Sociedad, Universidad de Navarra, 30 giugno – 1 luglio, p. 18 Book of Abstracts.

Mattei, Elena, “Multimodal Tourism Discourse on Instagram: How to Leverage the Romantic Gaze and Its Aura of Exclusivity and Superiority to Foster Sustainable Behavior.”, in 31st European Systemic Functional Linguistics: Social Semiotics and Sustainability, University of Southern Denmark, 24-26 agosto, p. 39-40 Book of Abstracts.
 

2021

Mattei, Elena, “Researching Contemporary Multimodal Artefacts: An Empirical Study of Tourism Photography on Instagram and Official Websites.”, in The Bremen-Groningen Online Workshops on Multimodality, Università di Brema (Prof. Bateman, PhD in Artificial Intelligence) e Università di Groningen (Dr. Wildfeuer, PhD in Multimodal Linguistics), 29 gennaio 2021. Book of Abstracts.

Mattei, Elena, “Multimodal Corpus Analysis of Online Tourism Narratives.”, in XII International Conference on Corpus Linguistics (CILC 2021), Università di Murcia, Spagna, 28-30 aprile 2021, p. 128 Book of Abstracts.

Mattei Elena, “Multimodal Corpus Analysis of Tourism Discourse on Social Media and Websites.”, in DHSI Conference and Colloquium, Digital Humanities Summer Institute, University of Victoria, Canada, 7-18 giugno 2021. Book of Abstracts.

2020

Mattei, Elena, “Multimodal Corpus Analysis of Tourism Promotional Communication Online.”, in Corpora and Discourse International Conference 2020, University of Sussex, UK, 17-19 giugno 2020, p. 95 Book of Abstracts.

Invited seminars

October 2023

Seminar on computational methods for the analysis of tourism communication at the international symposium "AI: Challenges and Potentialities. A Discourse Analysis Perspective" (Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Bergamo). Title: Integrating Computational and Statistical Methods into the Humanities: Investigating Multimodal Tourism Discourse with Empirical Social Semiotics and SRI Tagging Software".

Hands-on workshop on categorisation systems and discourse analysis of multimodal tourism at the international symposium 'AI: Challenges and potentialities. A Discourse Analysis Perspective'. Interactive use of SRI Tagging software.

December 2022

Workshop on the design of a Digital Humanities Project (Disciplines: Linguistics, Semiotics, Sociology). Universität Bochum

July 2022

Keynote speech and workshop at 3rd Bremen Student Conference in English Linguistics, Universität Bremen. Title: "How to Perform Systematic Manual Tagging of Visual Artifacts”

Advisory Board (Comitato Scientifico)

12th International Conference on Multimodality

HITRADE Database

Interviews - Terza Missione

Interview (1 hour) by Randstad Research centre about current tourism trends in the industry, with a focus on digital skills and communication, AI and potential avenues for the promotion of sustainable tourism. Report available here.

Participation as a digital tourism expert at a Round Table discussion chaired by La Repubblica and organized by Randstad Research. Event: "Viaggio nel turismo del prossimo decennio" (Teatro Sociale di Como, 9th July 2024). Video recording available here.

Interview by Como's La Provincia newspaper. Topic: Destination Image's authenticity and digital literacy: what is the role of Instagram and AI? Article available here. 

Awarding of Prizes/Shortlist

Finalist for the Paul Fortier Prize as Emerging Researcher in the Digital Humanities at the international conference Digital Humanities 2023 (Alliance of Digital Humanities Organisations.

Editorial activities

Editorial member (editor and scientific board) of the scientific journal TRANS-KATA.

Editorial member of the scientific journal Iperstoria (Class A) and proofreading activities.

Peer reviews for Routledge. Content reviewed: book proposals (scholarly monographs). Topics: Linguistics; Multimodality. Managing editor: Elysse Preposi

Double-blind peer review activity for the scientific journal Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (Oxford Academic) Impact Factor: 0.8 

Double-blind peer review activity for the scientific journal Visual Communication (Sage Journals) Impact Factor: 1.2                                     

Double-blind peer review activity for the scientific journal Digital Humanities Interdisciplinary Digital Engagement in Arts & Humanities (IDEAH)

Double-blind peer review activities of contributions for the annual conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organisations (DH2024)