| 1. |
- Hommerberg, Charlotte, 1960-
(författare)
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Hur vi talar om cancer
- 2017
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Annan publikation (film/video) (populärvet., debatt m.m.)
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| 2. |
- Gustafsson, Anna W, et al.
(författare)
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Coping by metaphors : The versatile function of metaphors in blogs about living with advanced cancer
- 2020
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Ingår i: Medical Humanities. - London : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 1468-215X .- 1473-4265. ; 46:3, s. 267-277
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Living with a life-limiting cancer illness can entail a turmoil of feelings such as constant fear of loss, suffering and dying. Because patients live longer with life-limiting illness, there is a need for enhanced understanding of how people make sense of and cope with the complicated aspects that this life situation brings on. In this article, we explore how bloggers with advanced cancer use metaphors as ways of making sense of their experiences. Our study is theoretically grounded in Conceptual Metaphor Theory, where metaphors are seen as a powerful phenomenon that both reflects and affects our thinking. The data consist of a corpus of blogs written in Swedish by individuals with advanced cancer, and the findings from our linguistic metaphor analysis are consistently interpreted against the backdrop of literature on coping. Our study thus highlights the intersection of linguistic metaphor analysis and psychological theories of coping by illustrating the many and complex functions metaphors can have as part of sense-making processes. Our hermeneutic approach enables us to show some differences among the three most pervasive metaphor domains in our material, battle, journey and imprisonment: the journey and imprisonment domains are more flexible than the battle domain in terms of the different kinds of coping strategies that are actualised by the bloggers’ use of metaphors. One particular finding from our analysis is the way in which the bloggers make use of metaphors to compartmentalise experiences and emotions. Our contention is that careful attention to the metaphors used by patients can improve communication in healthcare and enhance understanding of the complex role language use plays in coping processes more generally. By highlighting the relation between metaphor use and coping, our analysis also provides a way to discuss coping strategies based on the patient’s own use of language.
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| 3. |
- Hommerberg, Charlotte, 1960-, et al.
(författare)
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Battle, Journey, Imprisonment and Burden : patterns of metaphor use in blogs about living with advanced cancer
- 2020
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Ingår i: BMC Palliative Care. - : Springer Nature. - 1472-684X. ; 19, s. 1-10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The significance of metaphors for the experience of cancer has been the topic of extensive previous research, with “Battle” and “Journey” metaphors standing out as key. Adaptation to the patient’s use of metaphor is generally believed to be an important aspect of person-centered care, especially in palliative care. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of metaphors in blogs written in Swedish by people living with advanced cancer and explore possible patterns associated with individuals, age and gender.Methods: The study is based on a dataset totaling 2 602 479 words produced some time during the period 2007–2016 by 27 individuals diagnosed with advanced cancer. Both qualitative and quantitative procedures were used, and the findings are represented as raw frequencies as well as normalized frequencies per 10 000 words. Our general approach was exploratory and descriptive. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to analyze statistical significance.Results: Our results confirm the strong foothold of “Journey” and “Battle” metaphors. “Imprisonment” and “Burden” metaphors were also used by the majority of the individuals. The propensity to use metaphors when describing the cancer experience was found to differ extensively across the individuals. However, individuals were not found to opt for one conceptualization over the other but tended to draw on several different metaphor domains when conceptualizing their experience. Socio-demographic factors such as age or gender were not found to be strong predictors of metaphor choice in this limited study.Conclusions: Using a range of different metaphors allows individuals with advanced cancer to highlight different aspects of their experience. The presence of metaphors associated with “Journey”, “Battle”, “Imprisonment” and “Burden” across individuals could be explained by the fact that the bloggers are part of a culturally consistent cohort, despite variations in age, sex and cancer form. Awareness of metaphors commonly used by patients can enhance health professionals’ capacity to identify metaphorical patterns and develop a common language grounded in the patients’ own metaphor use, which is an important requisite for person-centered palliative care.
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| 4. |
- Hommerberg, Charlotte, 1960-, et al.
(författare)
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Rendering the ungraspable graspable : the use of metaphors in Swedish palliative cancer care
- 2016
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Ingår i: Palliative Medicine. - : Sage Publications. - 0269-2163 .- 1477-030X. ; 30:6, s. NP364-NP364
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Good communication is of utmost importance in all forms of cancer care and especially so in the palliative context. To render the ungraspable graspable, metaphors are frequently used drawing on their capacity to capture the intangible in terms of more familiar experiences. For instance, to die from cancer can be described as ’coming to the end of a life journey’ or ’losing a battle’. Metaphors are largely language and culture specific. Today’s increasingly multicultural societies require particular awareness in order to achieve dignified, individualized palliative cancer care. This project aims to strengthen the scientific foundation for the use of metaphors in Swedish palliative cancer care. A secondary aim is to compare the use of metaphors in Sweden and the UK in order to reveal differences and similarities. Textual data are collected froma) internet-based blogs, where patients write about their illness-related emotions and experiences while being in palliative care, and fromb) interviews with patients, family and health care professionals, where the focus is to investigate what it means to live a dignified life in palliative care.The two sets of data are analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative linguistic methods. First, the Pragglejaz procedure, a well-established linguistic method for metaphor identification, is used in order to manually identify metaphorical expressions in the material, develop analytic categories adapted to the Swedish language data and ensure inter-rater reliability. Second, the material is approached by means of corpus linguistic methods. The combination of research methods is inspired by the UK-based MELC project. The data are currently being processed and the first results will be presented at the conference. The project is funded by The Kamprad Family Foundation, Sweden.
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