Conversational texts gathered in a study of relationships between elderly individuals and college students are interpreted as the discursive production of elderly frailty. Conversation is explored as the relational arena in which elderly identity is assembled and displayed. Accomplished in and through discourse, an elderly identity of frailty orients communicators to illness and death and reflects the allocation of power within relationships between the elderly and others. Frailty is also examined as a frame for the narration of accumulated life experience.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ainlay, S.
, & Redfoot, D. (1982). Aging and identity-in-the-world: A phenomenological analysis. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 15(1), 1-15.
2.
Alexander, D.
, & Newell, S. E. (1982). The intensive interview as a means of discovering the talk of friends. Paper presented at the Western Speech Communication Association convention, San Jose, CA, 1982.
3.
Anderson, J.
(1987). Communication research: Issues and methods. New York: McGraw-Hill.
4.
Atkinson, J. M.
, & Heritage, J. (Eds.). (1984). Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis. London: Cambridge University Press.
5.
Buttney, R.
(1985). Accounts as a reconstruction of an event's context. Communication Monographs, 52, 57-77.
6.
Caporael, L.
, Lukaszewski, M., & Culbertson, G. (1983). Secondary baby talk: Judgments by institutionalized elderly and their caregivers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 746-754.
7.
Cicourel, A. V.
(1980). Three models of discourse analysis: The role of social structure. Discourse Processes, 3, 101-132.
8.
Coupland, J.
, Coupland, N., Giles, H., & Henwood, K. (1991). Formulating age: Dimensions of age identity in elderly talk. Discourse Processes, 14, 87-100.
9.
Coupland, N.
, Coupland, J., & Giles, H. (1989). Telling age in later life: Identity and face implications. Text, 9(2), 129-151.
10.
Coupland, N.
, Coupland J., Giles, G., & Henwood, K. (1988). Accommodating the elderly: Invoking and extending a theory. Language in Society, 17, 1-41.
11.
Coupland, N.
, Coupland J., Giles, H., Henwood, K., & Wiemann, J. (1988). Elderly self-disclosure: Interactional and intergroup issues. Language and Communication, 8(2), 109-133.
12.
Gadow, S.
(1983). Frailty and strength: The dialectic in aging. Gerontologist, 23, 144-147.
13.
Giles, H.
, Williams, A., & Coupland, N. (1990). Communication, health and the elderly: Frameworks, agenda and a model. In H. Giles, N. Coupland, & J. Wiemann (Eds.), Communication, health, and the elderly (pp. 1-28). New York: Manchester University Press.
14.
Gleason, P.
(1983). Identifying identity: A semantic history. Journal of American History, 69, 910-931.
15.
Goffman, E.
(1961). Asylums. Garden City, NY: Anchor.
16.
Grainger, K.
, Atkinson, K., & Coupland, N. (1990). Responding to the elderly: Trobles talk in the caring context. In H. Giles, N. Coupland, & J. Wiemann (Eds.), Communication, health, and the elderly (pp. 192-212). New York: Manchester University Press.
17.
Hadden, S. C.
, & Lester, M. (1978). Talking identity: The production of “self” in interaction. Human Studies, 1, 331-356.
18.
Hawes, L. C.
(1977). Toward a hermeneutic phenomenology of communication. Communication Quarterly, 25, 30-41.
19.
Kaplan, G.
, Burrell, B., & Lusky, A. (1988). Subjective state of health and survival in elderly adults. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 43(4), S114-S120.
20.
Keith, P. M.
(1979). Life changes and perceptions of life and death among older men and women. Journal of Gerontology, 35, 870-878.
21.
Lincoln, Y. S.
, & Guba, I. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
22.
Lofland, J.
, & Lofland, L. H. (1984). Analyzing social settings: A guide to qualitative observation and analysis (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
23.
McDermott, R. P.
, Gospodinoff, K., & Aron, J. (1978). Criteria for an ethnographically adequate description of concerted activities and their contexts. Semiotica, 24, 245-276.
24.
Pomerantz, A.
(1990). Conversation analytic claims. Communication Monographs, 57, 231-235.
25.
Revere, V.
, & Tobin, S. S. (1980). Myth and reality: The older person's relationship to his past. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 12, 15-26.
26.
Ricoeur, P.
(1971). The model of the text: Meaningful action considered as text. Social Research, 38, 529-555.
27.
Ryan, E. B.
, & Cole, R. L. (1990). Evaluative perceptions of interpersonal communication with elders. In H. Giles, N. Coupland, & J. Wiemann (Eds.), Communication, health, and the elderly (pp. 172-191). New York: Manchester University Press.
28.
Schenkhein, J.
(1978). Identity negotiations in conversation. In J. Schenkhein (Ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction. New York: Academic Press.
29.
Spence, D. L.
(1986). Some contributions of symbolic interactionism to the study of growing old. In V. W. Marshall (Ed.), Later life: The social psychology of ageing. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
30.
Stubbs, M.
(1983). Discourse analysis: The sociolinguistic analysis of natural language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
31.
Thorsheim, H.
, & Roberts, B. (1990). Empowerment through story sharing: Communication and reciprocal social support among older persons. In H. Giles, N. Coupland, & J. Wiemann (Eds.), Communication, health, and the elderly (pp. 114-125). New York: Manchester University Press.
32.
Wiemann, J.
, Gravell, R., & Wiemann, M. (1990). Communication with the elderly: Implications for health care and social support. In H. Giles, N. Coupland, & J. Wiemann (Eds.), Communication, health, and the elderly (pp. 229-242). New York: Manchester University Press.
