If Cemeteries Could Talk … A Discourse-Analytical Analysis of Epitaphs

People living with dementia (PWDs) often experience stigma that is reinforced by negative representations of the condition in discourse. This paper addresses the lack of research into this stigma by analyzing the representation of the condition in naturally occurring texts of people in direct contact with PWDs. Two blogs from Flemish family caregivers and one blog from a Flemish health professional were selected based on word count and keyword relevance, and studied both quantitatively and qualitatively. For the quantitative analysis keywords, n-grams, and collocations were identified in 225 blog posts, using Sketch Engine. For the qualitative analysis, 26 blog posts were analyzed by categorizing conceptual metaphors according to their conceptual mappings. The quantitative analysis indicates that the health professional employs a different approach in reporting, compared to the family caregivers. The qualitative analysis results in five conceptual mappings: PWDs as living dead, PWDs as trees, dementia as concealment, dementia as an acting entity and dementia as an attack. The frequency of these mappings shows that the condition is being dissociated from the PWDs, and described with more negative metaphors than the PWDs themselves.

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

Crespo-Fernández

2023

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In spite of the fact that taboos change over time, death is still a delicate and sensitive subject in today’s Western societies. Our unwillingness to talk openly about death and dying makes people resort to euphemism as a safe way to talk about human mortality and related matters. Following Steen’s Deliberate Metaphor Theory, this study discusses the role that euphemistic metaphors play on a sample of 174 gravestone inscriptions from the English Cemetery of Malaga, the oldest Protestant cemetery in Spain, and, at the same time, examines the social and cognitive aspects of metaphor in epitaph writing. The analysis carried out reveals that most of the 96 metaphorical items observed in the gravestone inscriptions present positive connotations. Indeed, the source domains of rest, peace, new life and journey offer an optimistic and comforting approach to death and dying, whereas the domains of loss and separation refer to the target domain of death in negative terms. All in all, the metaphors encountered in the epitaphs are deliberately used both to help the bereaved confront the loss of a loved one and pay tribute to the deceased.

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If Cemeteries Could Talk … A Discourse-Analytical Analysis of Epitaphs

Cited by 3 publications

References 13 publications

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

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