Gender and the Language of Illness

In this innovative book, well-known scholars Jonathan Charteris-Black and Clive Seale take a novel approach to the study of gendered discourses. Drawing upon findings of an ESRC research project in which the authors carried out extensive analysis of interviews with people who had experienced illness, they offer original and significant evaluation of the differences in the way that men and women talk about illness. The book looks at evidence from the discourse of both sexes, from different generations and social classes as well as from a variety of types of illnesses. With input from both a linguistic and sociological perspective this book also has a strong interdisciplinary appeal. The authors develop a new methodological approach, and its findings will be important to medical sociologists interested in the patient experience as well as to linguists interested in applying language analysis to the social world.