The Language of Museum Communication: A Diachronic Perspective

281 Pages·2016·6.083 MB·

by  Cecilia Lazzeretti (auth.)

The Language
of Museum
Communication
A DIACHRONIC PERSPECTIVE
CECILIA LAZZERETTI
The Language of Museum Communication

Cecilia   Lazzeretti
The Language of
Museum
Communication
A Diachronic Perspective
Cecilia Lazzeretti
Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Modena , Italy

ISBN 978-1-137-57148-9 ISBN 978-1-137-57149-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57149-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948106
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To Andrea and Nora

Acknowledgements
My gratitude is due fi rst of all to Geert Jacobs for providing inspiration
and for his valued advice on this book. I am also thankful to Marina
Bondi for guidance during the doctoral stage of the research, and to my
colleagues at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.
A word of thanks goes to the museum professionals who contributed
to this project, sending materials to be collected in the corpus and provid-
ing supportive feedback: Nicholas Donaldson, former Assistant Archivist
at the National Gallery, London, now Assistant Archivist at Waddesdon
Manor; Mark Pomeroy, Librarian at the Royal Academy of Arts, London;
James Sutton, Archivist at the London Victoria and Albert Museum,
London; Mary Richardson and Janice Dillard, Librarians at the Chicago
Museum of Contemporary Art; Francine Snyder, Director of Library
and Archives at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Heidi Rosenau,
Manager of Media Relations and Marketing at the Frick Collection,
New York; and Flavia Fossa Margutti, Head of Projects and Publishing
Activities at the Venice Biennale.
Finally, on a more personal level, I am grateful to my husband and my
family, who with their unconditional encouragement and support over
the years have made this work possible.
vii

Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Museum Press Releases 3
1.2 Museum Public Relations 8
1.3 Research Directions 16
1.4 Outline of Contents 17
References 18
2 Th eoretical Background 23
2.1 Th e Discourse of Museum Communication 23
2.1.1 Art Discourse 24
2.1.2 Promotional Discourse 29
2.1.3 Media Discourse 32
2.1.4 Museum Communication: Art-Media Speak 38
2.2 Th e Notion of Genre 40
2.3 Working with Corpora 42
2.4 A Diachronic Approach 49
References 52
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