Hyperbole

Philosophy

Psychology

Natural language processing

Metaphor

Simile

Computer science

Adversary

Linguistics

Literal and figurative language

Computer security

Discourse Context & Media

Highlights•The language that TEDsters use is effective but also accessible to non-experts.•The techniques used range from periphrasis to simile, metaphor, and hyperbole.•Figurative language is often used to enhance the comprehensibility of the talks.•Frequent collocations evoke the metaphor CANCER IS ENEMY (to fight).•TED Talks can also help psycho-oncology experts to support cancer sufferers.

A corpus-based analysis of scientific TED Talks: Explaining cancer-related topics to non-experts