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Life (Beyond) Writing: Illness Narratives

Research Project
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01.10.2009
 - 30.09.2012

This research project explores the social and cultural meanings of illness narratives and analyses their role and function in the literary, linguistic, and medical field. Thus, illness narratives will be approached from the three different disciplines, literary studies, linguistics, and medicine. Life writing (autobiographical) texts are omnipresent in our lives and play a crucial role in doctor-patient communication, in literature, and in everyday linguistic situations. The importance of narrative in the medical field has become acknowledged, but most doctors are not trained to be susceptible to specific linguistic and literary uses in their patients' stories. Thus, it is necessary to integrate literary and linguistic issues into the curriculum at medical schools to approach illness more holistically. In addition, numerous recent illness narratives by patients/writers provide new insights that go beyond the biomedical dimension of an illness, and with their aesthetic impact express additional aspects of human experience such as illness. A linguistic analysis of narratives by Swiss medical students on a case history and comparative corpora from English and American students will offer crucial information on the ways in which future doctors interpret a patient's narrative and reflect their own situation. The results of both the linguistic and literary analyses will be used to improve current and develop future training for communicative skills for both medical students and practicing doctors and thus has a direct applied impact for the medical humanities . Furthermore, the students will improve their narrative competence and learn to pay heed to otherwise hidden, yet crucial information on a more encompassing context of illness. The interrelation between the three disciplines will thus be manifold in that both fields of linguistics and literature will work on data derived from the field of medicine and will let their results flow back into the field of medicine.

Publications

Locher, Miriam A. (2017) Reflective Writing in Medical Practice. A Linguistic Perspective, 2. Bristol: Multilingual Matters (2).

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Gygax, Franziska and Locher, Miriam A. (2015) Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines, Studies in narrative. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (Studies in narrative). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.20.

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Gygax, Franziska and Locher, Miriam A. (2015) ‘Introduction to narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines’, in Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (Studies in narrative), pp. 1–14. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.20.01gyg.

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Locher, Miriam A., Koenig, Regula and Meier, Janine (2015) ‘A genre analysis of reflective writing texts by English medical students : what role does narrative play?’, in Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (Studies in narrative), pp. 141–164. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.20.08loc.

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Locher, Miriam A. and Koenig, Regula (2014) ‘‘All I could do was hand her another tissue’ : handling emotions as a challenge in reflective writing texts by medical students’, in Emotion, affect, sentiment : the language and aesthetics of feeling. Tübingen: Narr (Spell), pp. 215–236.

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Gygax, Franziska (2013) ‘On Being Ill (in Great Britain and the US): Illness Narratives of the Self’, European Journal of Life Writing, 2, pp. 1–17. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5463/ejlw.2.42.

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Gygax, Franziska et al. (2013) ‘Interdisziplinäres Forschungsprojekt: «Life (Beyond) Writing: Illness Narratives»’, Bulletin SAGW: Dossier Gesundheitsforschung. Perspektiven der Sozialwissenschaften, 1 January, pp. 60–61. Available at: http://www.sagw.ch/dms/sagw/bulletins_sagw/bulletins_2013/bulletin3_2013/SAGW_WEB.

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Gygax, Franziska (2013) ‘Theoretically Ill: Autobiographer, Patient, Theorist’, in Lembert-Heidenreich, Alexandra; Mildorf, Jarmila (ed.) The Writing Cure: Literature and Medicine in Context. Münster: Lit (Kultur- und Naturwissenschaften im Dialog), pp. 173–190.

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Gygax, Franziska, Locher, Miriam A. and Koenig, Regula (2012) ‘Moving across disciplines and genres : reading identity in illness narratives and reflective writing texts’, in Bates, Benjamin R.; Ahmed, Rukhsana (ed.) Medical communication in clinical contexts. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt (Medical communication in clinical contexts), p. S. 17–35.

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Gygax, Franziska (2007) ‘The aesthetics of illness : narratives as empowerment’, in Madsen, Deborah (ed.) American Aesthetics. Tübingen: Gunter Narr (Spell), p. S. 191–206.

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Members (5)

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Alexander Kiss

Principal Investigator
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Miriam Locher

Principal Investigator
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Franziska Gygax

Project Member
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Claudia Steiner

Project Member
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Regula König

Project Member