Telling pain : a study of the linguistic encoding of the experiences of chronic pain and illness through the lexicogrammar of Italian
Since the publication of Halliday (1988) a number of studies on the linguistic encoding of pain have appeared. These include Lascaratou (2003; 2007) on Greek, Hori (2006) on Japanese, Overlach (2008) on German. Using Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), this thesis adds another language to the existing body of work on how physical pain gets encoded crosslinguistically. The empirical work undertaken comprises the analysis of an original corpus of interviews with seven Italian speakers living with one of three chronic conditions: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), and Spinal Disc Herniation (SDH). This thesis shows the multiple ways in which the lexicogrammar of Italian encodes bodily pain as THING, (nominally), HAPPENING (through verbs), and as QUALITY of something (adjectivally). The analysis shows that speakers in the corpus favour the first type of encoding and suggests why this might be the case. From pain itself, the scope of the analysis broadens to include the lived experience of physical pain related to chronic illness by looking at the informantsâ use of evaluative language. This is analysed by means of Appraisal Theory (Martin and Rose, 2003; Martin, 2005; Martin and White,
Bacchini, Simone Curzio
Italian language ; Linguistics ; Pain--Cross-cultural studies
Telling pain : a study of the linguistic encoding of the experiences of chronic pain and illness through the lexicogrammar of Italian. Since the publication of Halliday (1988) a number of studies on the linguistic encoding of pain have appeared. These include Lascaratou (2003; 2007) on Greek, Hori (2006) on Japanese, Overlach (2008) on German. Using Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), this thesis adds another language to the existing body of work on how physical pain gets encoded crosslinguistically. The empirical work undertaken comprises the analysis of an original corpus of interviews with seven Italian speakers living with one of three chronic conditions: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), and Spinal Disc Herniation (SDH). This thesis shows the multiple ways in which the lexicogrammar of Italian encodes bodily pain as THING, (nominally), HAPPENING (through verbs), and as QUALITY of something (adjectivally). The analysis shows that speakers in the corpus favour the first type of encoding and suggests why this might be the case. From pain itself, the scope of the analysis broadens to include the lived experience of physical pain related to chronic illness by looking at the informantsâ use of evaluative language. This is analysed by means of Appraisal Theory (Martin and Rose, 2003; Martin, 2005; Martin and White,
telling pain study linguistic encoding experience chronic pain illness italian since_publication halliday number study linguistic encode pain appear include person greek japanese german using systemic_functional grammar add another_language exist_body work physical pain get encode empirical work_undertaken comprises analysis original corpus interview italian speaker live chronic condition systemic show multiple_way italian bodily pain thing nominally happening verb quality something analysis_show speaker corpus favour first type encode suggests might case pain scope analysis broadens include lived_experience physical pain related chronic illness look informant use evaluative language analyse mean appraisal_theory martin martin martin_white