LINGUIST List 25.3281
Sat
Aug 16 2014
Diss: Sociolinguistics:
Cochrane: 'Telling Disability: Identity
Construction in Personal and Vicarious
Narratives'
Editor for this issue:
Danuta Allen <danutalinguistlist.org>
Date: 16-Aug-2014
From: Leslie Cochrane
<lesliecochrane
gmail.com>
Subject: Telling Disability:
Identity Construction in Personal and Vicarious
Narratives
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Institution: Georgetown University
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2014
Author: Leslie E Cochrane
Dissertation Title: Telling Disability:
Identity Construction in Personal and Vicarious
Narratives
Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics
Dissertation Director:
Heidi E Hamilton
Dissertation Abstract:
This dissertation examines the construction of
disability identities in personal and vicarious
narratives. Sociolinguistic research on
narrative focuses largely on personal narrative
(Schiffrin 1996); some studies claim that
vicarious narratives lack coherence and
evaluation (Labov and Waletzky 1967, Chafe
1994) and have no natural relation to the
teller’s identity (Norrick 2013). Research on
health communication contributes to linguistic
understandings of disability (Hamilton 1994,
Ramanathan 2009); however, few studies explore
disability discourse as its own area (cf. Al
Zidjaly 2005). Taking an approach to disability
discourse that emphasizes disability as
practice, I analyze identity construction in
narratives told by people with and without
disabilities. I argue that vicarious narratives
-- which I define as narratives about someone
else’s lived experience -- are productive sites
for constructing personal identities.
The analysis investigates narratives from a
16-hour corpus of video-recorded conversations
among three participants with lifelong,
mobility-related, physical disabilities; their
able-bodied family, friends, and caregivers;
and the able-bodied researcher. The analysis
shows tellers displaying their individual
disability identities through positions (Davies
and Harré 1990, Bamberg 1997) taken up in
response to able-bodied characters in
storyworlds. I propose that telling vicarious
narratives allows tellers to expand their
repertoires of storyworlds beyond their own
lived experiences. I demonstrate how one
particular teller with a disability uses
vicarious narratives about third-person
characters to construct her personal disability
identity.
Following Goffman (1963), I adapt the term “the
wise” to apply to people without disabilities
who, through social network ties to a person
with a disability, are “wise to” disability
practices and have a measure of acceptance in
the disability community. I argue that these
close ties allow able-bodied people to display
their wiseness through a transfer of epistemic
rights with regard to disability discourse. I
show that people with disabilities and the wise
within their communities can co-construct
shared disability identities. By defining
certain able-bodied people as wise, this
dissertation reconsiders the role of people
without disabilities in the disability
community. It suggests that wise identities and
shared disability identities provide avenues
for exploring how identity is created within
close communities.
Page Updated: 16-Aug-2014