Homes from home? Talking about care homes and their residents in Italian and in English: a corpus-based analysis

The paper explores discourses of and about care homes for older people, in Italian and in English. Two corpora were compiled, made of texts taken from websites of care homes in Lombardy (Italy) and London (England). These were examined using the corpus analyser SketchEngine, looking for frequencies, collocations and concordances of expressions employed to define the facilities and their residents. The findings show that English and Italian websites use similar phrases to convey similar ideas, revolving around concepts of intimacy, love, and affection. However, stereotypes of older people as frail, vulnerable, and dependent are also maintained. The paper is part of a field of research focussing on the language used to describe older people, where special attention is paid to ageism and discrimination, and to the importance of patient-centred care for seniors. It helps to shed light on similarities and differences between the Italian and the English language, as well as on the perception of nursing and residential homes in both countries.