Professor Diana Slade Elected as Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences

Professor Diana Slade announced Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences

In February Professor Diana Slade was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). This prestigious fellowship is awarded to Diana in recognition of her outstanding contribution to linguistics, healthcare communication and translational research. Diana is 1 of 2 Australians elected in this round and only the second Fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences from ANU.

Recognized as a distinguished academic in her field, she is modest about the conferment.

“For me, it's an extraordinary honour and I feel genuinely very humbled by it. Sometimes when people say that, it can sound disingenuous but I really mean it. I could think of many people, I believe who deserve this honour more.”

Diana has over 30 years of experience in researching, teaching and publishing in applied linguistics and organisational communication. Since 2008 she has focused on the critical role of communication in the provision of safe and effective healthcare. Then in 2017, Diana accepted a strategic appointment to work at ANU as a Professor of Applied Linguistics. With support from CASS, the Research School of Humanities and the Arts (RSHA) and SLLL she was soon to become Director of the newly established Institute for Communication in Health Care (ICH), which was formally launched at the ICH Inaugural international symposium on Communication in Health Care in February 2018.  It was at this symposium that Diana, with a group of international colleagues decided to establish The International Consortium for Communication in Health Care (IC4CH)—an international, interdisciplinary collaborative that brings together leaders in the field of healthcare communication.

ANU ICH currently leads IC4CH, whose member organisations include University College London, Lancaster University, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, The University of Hong Kong and Queensland University of Technology. Dr Elizabeth Rider, School of Medicine, Harvard University is an affiliate member, with plans to be an organisational member by the end of this year. Diana contributes the conferment to the British Academy to this wonderful network of 6 organisations as well as to the many international collaborations and collective support she's received since coming to ANU.

“I do not believe the conferment would have happened without the ongoing and systematic support that I’ve had from linguistics, the College of Arts and Social Sciences, as well as colleagues in the College of Health and Medicine, and ANU more broadly."

“To me, the conferment is a recognition of the amazing collaborations that we've been doing across these five countries and the collective work that we've been doing pre my time at ANU. Dr Suzanne Eggins (ANU), Professor Christian Matthiessen (then at Hong Kong Polytechnic University) and Dr. Elizabeth Rider (Harvard University) were instrumental before I came to ANU in establishing our communication in health care international collaborative. This honour is very much to do with the team members I have worked with over the last 14 years, I’m just a part of it.”

Her research in communication in health care draws from linguistics, sociology, qualitative research methods and design, medicine, nursing and other health science-related disciplines, and has attracted a broad interdisciplinary readership. Her work in these fields has significantly advanced understanding of theoretical linguistic frameworks for describing and conceptualising language in social interaction and more recently, the relationship between communication and patient safety in healthcare contexts.

Her publications in the field of health care communication include two books— Communicating in Hospital Emergency Departments (Slade et al, 2015), Effective Communication in Clinical Handover – from Research to Practice(Eggins, Slade and Geddes, 2016) and before that her seminal books on the description of English casual conversation,Analysing Casual Conversation with Suzanne Eggins (1997, Equinox) and Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy with Scott Thornbury (2006, Cambridge University Press).

Since she started initiating and leading research projects on different aspects of health care communication research in 2008 she has received research funding of approximately $7 million AUD, led 23 cross-disciplinary research projects on healthcare communication across Hong Kong and Australia, and has been second investigator on a further seven projects.

In 2023, Diana’s current research foci is End of Life communication, and self-management of chronic conditions. Currently she is leading a multi-site project funded by the Ramsay Hospital Research Foundation’s Translational Grant Challenge on ‘Improving communication to enhance patients’ health literacy, empowerment and self-management of heart failure’.