Overview

The ageing of the world’s populations, particularly in Western developed countries, is a well-documented phenomenon; and despite many positive images of later life, in the media and public discourse later life is frequently depicted as a time of inevitable physical and cognitive decline. Against this background, Heinrichsmeier presents the results of her two-year sociolinguistic study examining how a group of older women of different ages negotiated their way through their own and others’ expectations of ageing and constructed different kinds of older – and other – identities for themselves. Through vivid and nuanced analysis of their chat and practices in a small village hair salon, Heinrichsmeier reveals these women’s subtle and skilful manipulation of stereotypes of ageing and the impact of the evolving talk on their identity constructions. Her study, which provides numerous short extracts of talk in both the hair salon and interview along with more detailed case studies, highlights the importance of such apparently ‘trivial’ sites – for both studying older people’s identity work and as loci for positive identity constructions and well-being in later life. This book will be of particular interest to graduate students and scholars working in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, and gerontological studies, as well as those interested in approaches integrating ethnography and language.

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9781032175843

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This inspiring book, full of living narratives of older women, invites readers to think critically about ageing against a background of increasing longevity. - Jing Wu, University of Gothenburg, Ageing and Society [This book] makes a convincing case for approaching ageing and age identity as contextual, co-constructed by participants, and as intersecting with other aspects of our identities...I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in talk and (age) identity constructions, women and ageing, or the application of CA/MCA/IS on talk and interaction. - Virpi Ylanne, Cardiff University, Journal of Pragmatics

Author Information

Rachel Heinrichsmeier is a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London. Her research focusses on identity construction in interaction, particularly older-age, gender and institutional identities, and combines a conversation analytic-informed discourse analysis with ethnographic methods.

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