Chapter 3. Personhood, genealogy and remembrance in death notices and obituaries
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Susanne Mühleisen
Abstract
Death and bereavement as fundamental human experiences are expressed in culturally diverse verbal and non-verbal acts of mourning. Death notices are public announcements which can be found in newspapers (print and, more recently, also in online versions of newspapers) as part of the classified advertisements. These are distinguished here from obituaries as forms of life narrative of persons of public significance. This chapter will first explore the macro-structural and micro-linguistic features of death announcements from a comparative perspective. A corpus of ca. 250 death notices from the Trinidad Guardian newspaper and other sources will then be analysed in order to explore particular features of the genre in the Caribbean context. Special attention will be given to the use of nicknames (“a.k.a,” “also known as …,” or “better known as …”) and personhood in Trinidadian death notices. Furthermore, a comparative qualitative analysis of obituaries for Caribbean Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott will also investigate narrative structure and evaluative speech acts in that genre.
Abstract
Death and bereavement as fundamental human experiences are expressed in culturally diverse verbal and non-verbal acts of mourning. Death notices are public announcements which can be found in newspapers (print and, more recently, also in online versions of newspapers) as part of the classified advertisements. These are distinguished here from obituaries as forms of life narrative of persons of public significance. This chapter will first explore the macro-structural and micro-linguistic features of death announcements from a comparative perspective. A corpus of ca. 250 death notices from the Trinidad Guardian newspaper and other sources will then be analysed in order to explore particular features of the genre in the Caribbean context. Special attention will be given to the use of nicknames (“a.k.a,” “also known as …,” or “better known as …”) and personhood in Trinidadian death notices. Furthermore, a comparative qualitative analysis of obituaries for Caribbean Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott will also investigate narrative structure and evaluative speech acts in that genre.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. Genre in World Englishes 1
- Chapter 2. Callaloo, stewed manicou and doubles 17
- Chapter 3. Personhood, genealogy and remembrance in death notices and obituaries 43
- Chapter 4. Metathesiophobia, nutty professors and Patois 77
- Chapter 5. Tell me Pastor 105
- Chapter 6. Mornin Caller 133
- Chapter 7. “… allyuh know how to parteeeeeeeeeeee. lawd!” 159
- Chapter 8. Picong and puns, boasting and complaining 183
- References 211
- Index 227
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. Genre in World Englishes 1
- Chapter 2. Callaloo, stewed manicou and doubles 17
- Chapter 3. Personhood, genealogy and remembrance in death notices and obituaries 43
- Chapter 4. Metathesiophobia, nutty professors and Patois 77
- Chapter 5. Tell me Pastor 105
- Chapter 6. Mornin Caller 133
- Chapter 7. “… allyuh know how to parteeeeeeeeeeee. lawd!” 159
- Chapter 8. Picong and puns, boasting and complaining 183
- References 211
- Index 227
