Chapter 6. Politics beyond death?

The Death Taboo: Euphemism and Metaphor in Epitaphs from the English Cemetery of Malaga, Spain

“…The present research seems to be justified-although previous cognitively based studies have focused on the metaphorical language of epitaphs in European cemeteries (Crespo-Fernández 2011, 2013Heynderickx and Dieltjens 2021b), to the best of my knowledge, no research so far has been devoted to the analysis of euphemistic metaphors in the gravestone inscriptions of an English cemetery located on mainland Spain 3 . The only existing study devoted to the epitaphs from the English Cemetery of Malaga, by Marchant Rivera et al (2005), however interesting it may be, does not offer a linguistic analysis of metaphor as a euphemistic response to the death taboo, as is the case here.…”

“…In general, the results obtained in the present research seem to confirm those reported in previous studies regarding the role of metaphor in funeral inscriptions. For instance, the studies by Crespo-Fernández (2006) and Heynderickx and Dieltjens (2021b) reveal that the metaphors used in English Victorian obituaries and in those of Belgian politicians, respectively, represent death as a positive, even desirable event by virtue of the REST, DEPARTURE, JOURNEY and NEW LIFE metaphors. Similarly, in other studies devoted to gravestone epitaphs from Highgate cemetery, London, and from Belgian cemeteries, the same authors demonstrated that the metaphors which display an optimistic, life-like approach to death prevail (Crespo-Fernández 2011; Heynderickx and Dieltjens 2021a).…”

Rumor Has it: “Dementia” A Discourse-Analytical Analysis of Obituaries of People With Dementia

“…The most obvious of those topics is death, which is “a timeless taboo in which psychological, religious and social interdictions coexist” (Crespo Fernández, 2006, p. 101). Several studies focus on strategies to circumvent the use of the words death and to die, and specifically on the use of metaphors and euphemisms (e.g., Cheung & Ho, 2004; Crespo Fernández, 2011; Galal, 2014; Heynderickx & Dieltjens, 2016; 2021; Heynderickx et al, 2017; Sexton, 1997; Tay, 2019). Such studies have revealed other sensitive concepts which are paraphrased instead of explicitly named.…”