ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by applying exploratory corpus methods to expose the main topics and concepts mentioned in each of the subsets of the data from the three participant groups and two genres, and how these topics and concepts differ across subcorpora. It also explores the patients, comparing their interviews and online forum posts with the combination of the carers' and professionals' data. Two other key semantic domains serve to highlight potential differences between the use of language by patients and professionals in particular. Professionals are bound by an ethical code of conduct, and as a result they do not disclose patient details from individual medical cases, whether in the interviews or on the online forum. The chapter also provides the role of different types of metaphors in talking and writing about cancer and the end of life. The types of metaphors include restraint metaphors, animal metaphors, openness metaphors, sports and games metaphors, religion and the supernatural metaphors, and obstacle metaphors.
