Health Communication · 2002 · 277 citations · 33 references
HumanitiesLinguisticsOncologyNarrative StudiesNarrative TheoryNarratologyCancer CommunicationEmbodied PracticeFigurative LanguageIllness PerceptionSymbolic AnthropologyBody MetaphorsDisease MetaphorsIllness ExperienceMetaphorMetaphorical InterpretationMetaphorical ReasoningOrdinary ExperiencePatient Narratives
Metaphor plays a contested yet central role in how cancer is conceptualized, with many scholars noting that ordinary embodied experiences shape the metaphors people use to understand the disease. The study analyzes the metaphors employed by six women in their cancer narratives to illuminate how language reflects and shapes illness cognition. The analysis shows that women’s metaphorical talk about cancer mirrors persistent, embodied patterns of thought, employing multiple and sometimes contradictory metaphors to capture their complex experiences.
Many scholars and medical professionals argue over the importance of metaphor in thinking about, and speaking of, cancer and other illnesses. Our study presents an analysis of the metaphors used by 6 women in their narratives of their experiences with cancer. We claim from our analyses that metaphorical talk about cancer reflects enduring metaphorical patterns of thought. Women used multiple, sometimes contradictory metaphors to conceptualize their complex cancer experiences. Many of their metaphors used to understand cancer are actually based on ordinary embodied experiences such that people still refer to the healthy body in trying to understand cancer even when their own bodies have been disrupted. We discuss the importance of our findings for understanding the relation between language and thought in regard to human illness.
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