Through different lenses: Social and clinical constructions of identity

Abstract

This article seeks to clarify some aspects of a common ageing condition by analysing an unusually rich portfolio of 'texts' about and by an ageing individual clinically diagnosed as suffering from Alzheimer's dementia. The study is unusual, both in the variety of material by and about her which is available for analysis, and in the use of different methods of analysis to provide a multidimensional view of the person and her condition. Early writings, long before the onset of the disease, allow for an insight into the person's mature personality. The rest of the analyses are thrown into relief by this diachronic perspective. A body of texts written by the person, unprompted, after entering the nursing home, is then examined from a literary and discourse analysis perspective. A video recording of the person's interactions with a researcher employing a discrete item psycholinguistic test is analysed from a pragmatics perspective. Then the discourses of the current medical files are explored to point up the ways in which her status as an individual is mediated through the categories used to describe her condition in medical terms. The implications of the various perspectives afforded by these analyses are teased out in the final section, and some implications for language studies in general are described.


(S/ern Af Linguistics & Applied Language Stud: 2001 19(3&4): 275-289)