Identity & relationship construction in elderly talk
| Number: | P59 |
| Organizer: | Engbersen, Agnes |
| Co-Organizer: | Trine Heinemann, Christina Englert |
| Abstract: | |
| In sociolinguistics, identity categories like gender, social class, nationality and ethnicity have received a substantial amount of analytic attention, describing how these categorical identities are socially accomplished by means of linguistic practices, rather than being stable, pre-determinable properties of individuals. One “identity category” that is as yet, with a few exceptions, unexplored in terms of its relation to talk in interaction and variations in interactional practices, is age and ageing. However, the research of Coupland et al (1991), indicate that also age should be seen as a socially accomplished category that may be understood in terms of cultural and interactional achievements. The purpose of this panel is to bring together researchers involved in studying interactions on identity and relationship construction with and among the elderly. We are interested in conversation analytic studies that investigate the recognizability and negotiation of the category ‘elderly’ through forms of interactional organization and uses of linguistic and discourse practices that are characteristic for and/or constitutive of the identity of being an elderly person. We would like to present studies on identity and relationship construction with a focus on interactional practices where an orientation towards autonomy is being displayed in different settings. On the one hand in specific institutional (care) settings and on the other hand in various social situations of autonomous living elderly. We also welcome multimodal approaches of these interactional practices. References: Coupland , Nikolas, Coupland, Justine, Giles, Howard (1991). Language, society and the elderly: Discourse, identity and ageing. Oxford/Cambridge, MA. |
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