Gerontology and the Construction of Old Age

by Green,Bryan

• ISBN13: 9780202362557
• ISBN10: 0202362558
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2009-08-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Although attitudes toward the aged and their care areinherent in any society, gerontology itself is a relativelyrecent field of study and practice. Gerontology and theConstruction of Old Age applies the methods of discourseanalysis and textual analysis to texts and documents inthis newly evolved and eclectic field. Green explores andidentifies the literary methods and discursive regularitiesthrough which aging and the aged have been made intoobjects of study and treatment, and which together form amode of knowledge production that will influence futuretexts in the field.Because such formats of representation limit rationaldiagnoses of problems and rational courses of ameliorativeaction, policy implications in the field of gerontology area major interest of this study. Another interest is methodological.Within the broader constructionist approachto social reality, Green takes the position of "constitutiverealism": the notion that social reality is linguisticallyconstructed, primarily in speech and writing.The book’s two aims are to describe analytically thefield of gerontology. The field is important both for itsgrowing academic presence and for its practical effectson discourse and policy concerning old age. It also hopesto help develop possibilities of inquiry associated with thelinguistic, literary, and rhetorical turns of social science inrecent years. Gerontology and the Construction of Old Age isa substantive investigation, at considerable theoretical depth,of gerontology itself, as well as a methodological treatisewith broader implications for social science as it focusesupon the discourse of various professional fields.