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Experiencing GrandparenthoodEmpowering Self-disclosure: The Active Post-retiree Life Accounts of Malaysian and Singaporean Senior Citizens

Experiencing Grandparenthood: Empowering Self-disclosure: The Active Post-retiree Life Accounts... [The elderly have become a major issue in many countries today. Health, lifestyles, living conditions and family support are important considerations for the elderly. Many of their peers have passed on and the elderly tend to be lonely. Sociolinguists (e.g. Matsumoto 2005; Coupland et al. 1991) have shown that the elderly tend to reveal their lives to interlocutors. Whilst self-disclosure discourses might be seen as strategies of rapport building (Egan 1994: 138), Peterson (1999) wrote that elderly discourse is a way of sharing acts of ‘elderly heroism’. It is the elderly person’s way of telling a compassionate listener what they have been through, how much they have suffered and what they are now experiencing. Doing so enables them to achieve a sense of integrity and establish an intimate connection with the listener. Such discourse has been termed ‘Painful Self-Disclosure’ (henceforth, PSD), and Bonnesen and Hummert (2002) describe PSD as an elderly phenomenon. They mention that PSD can be disempowering to the elderly as such discourses emphasise the negative aspects of ageing. PSD is thus seen as negative discourse, and reflects the perils of ageing (Matsumoto 2005) since such talk reveals the narrator’s unhappy personal situation, such as ill health, immobility, sadness and also self-despair.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Experiencing GrandparenthoodEmpowering Self-disclosure: The Active Post-retiree Life Accounts of Malaysian and Singaporean Senior Citizens

Part of the Social Indicators Research Series Book Series (volume 47)
Editors: Mehta, Kalyani K.; Thang, Leng Leng
David, Maya Khemlani; Hei, Kuang Ching
Experiencing Grandparenthood — Sep 28, 2011
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References (15)

Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Copyright
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
ISBN
978-94-007-2302-3
Pages
129 –143
DOI
10.1007/978-94-007-2303-0_8
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[The elderly have become a major issue in many countries today. Health, lifestyles, living conditions and family support are important considerations for the elderly. Many of their peers have passed on and the elderly tend to be lonely. Sociolinguists (e.g. Matsumoto 2005; Coupland et al. 1991) have shown that the elderly tend to reveal their lives to interlocutors. Whilst self-disclosure discourses might be seen as strategies of rapport building (Egan 1994: 138), Peterson (1999) wrote that elderly discourse is a way of sharing acts of ‘elderly heroism’. It is the elderly person’s way of telling a compassionate listener what they have been through, how much they have suffered and what they are now experiencing. Doing so enables them to achieve a sense of integrity and establish an intimate connection with the listener. Such discourse has been termed ‘Painful Self-Disclosure’ (henceforth, PSD), and Bonnesen and Hummert (2002) describe PSD as an elderly phenomenon. They mention that PSD can be disempowering to the elderly as such discourses emphasise the negative aspects of ageing. PSD is thus seen as negative discourse, and reflects the perils of ageing (Matsumoto 2005) since such talk reveals the narrator’s unhappy personal situation, such as ill health, immobility, sadness and also self-despair.]

Published: Sep 28, 2011

Keywords: Elderly Participant; Critical Discourse Analysis; Elderly Phenomenon; Rapport Building; Elderly Respondent

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