Vol. 7: Literary and Linguistic Perspectives on Healthcare and Disease: Themes and Trends from the Eighteenth Century to the Present
Quaderni

Discourses of Health, Wellbeing, and Sanitation in the Victorian Anti-Vaccination Popular Press: A Corpus-assisted Discourse Analysis of the VicVaDis Corpus

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  • Carlotta Fiammenghi
Carlotta Fiammenghi
Università degli Studi di Verona
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/lea-1824-484x-15583

Published 2025-04-02

Keywords

  • Health,
  • Sanitation,
  • Victorian Anti-Vaccination Movement,
  • VicVaDis Corpus,
  • Wellbeing

Copyright (c) 2025 Carlotta Fiammenghi

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The study explores discourses of health, wellbeing, illness, disease, and sanitation in Victorian anti-vaccination literature through a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the VicVaDis corpus performed using the LancsBox tool. The analysis reveals that Victorian anti-vaccinationists consistently framed vaccines as dangerous, disturbing the natural state of health, and linked them to various diseases. They advocated for sanitation and hygiene over vaccination, expressing scepticism towards emerging medical practices. The conclusions highlight the continuity of themes in anti-vaccination rhetoric from the Victorian era to the present, where similar arguments against vaccination persist, focusing on natural health, mistrust of medical authority, and anecdotal evidence.

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