Troubled Talk

by Kupferberg, Irit

• ISBN13: 9783110184150
• ISBN10: 311018415X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-06-30
• Publisher: Mouton De Gruyter

Summary

In this book, Irit Kupferberg and David Green ' a discourse analyst and a clinical psychologist' host 21 troubled human beings in an attempt to study how these sufferers negotiate their problems in the media, hotline, and cyber talk with professional and lay others. The authors show that the presentation of one's troubles in detailed personal stories as well as succinct figurative forms often 'lubricates' interpersonal communication, provided that the troubled selves are deemed media-worthy by the institutional representatives.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
List of the troubled selves	ix
Part 1 Defining the boundaries for problem discourse
Chapter 1 Situating problem discourse in a postmodern landscape	3	(12)
1. The troubled self visits actual and virtual sites	3	(2)
2. Institutional discourse: Between the panopticon and the workshop room	5	(10)
Chapter 2 Theoretical and methodological frameworks	15	(32)
1. Theoretical framework	15	(18)
1.1. Functional approaches to discourse	15	(6)
1.2. Global coherence	21	(1)
1.3. Narrative evaluation	22	(3)
1.4. Worlds of discourse	25	(3)
1.5. Discourse-oriented perspective on figurative language	28	(5)
2. Methodological framework	33	(8)
2.1. Corpora	33	(5)
2.1.1. "The two of us together and each of us alone" corpus	35	(1)
2.1.2. "Night birds talk" corpus	36	(1)
2.1.3. Hotline corpus	37	(1)
2.1.4. Cyberspace corpus	38	(1)
2.2. Data collection and analysis	38	(3)
3. Overview of the book	41	(6)
Part 2 Figurative bridges in radio, hotline and cyber discourse
Chapter 3 Organizing tropes	47	(22)
1. The troubled caller makes a phone call	47	(17)
1.1. Effective interactions	47	(9)
1.2. Ineffective interactions	56	(8)
2. Summary	64	(5)
Chapter 4 Open your call with a title	69	(24)
1. Topic-focused program: "I advise you to hate your mother"	69	(13)
2. General program: "I don't know how to get close to my middle son"	82	(8)
3. Summary	90	(3)
Chapter 5 Figurative conspiracies	93	(14)
1. Hotline sufferers	93	(11)
1.1. "Am I their floor rag?"	93	(6)
1.2. "The lion and the snake"	99	(3)
1.3. "My life is a story in a book"	102	(2)
2. Summary	104	(3)
Chapter 6 Cyber multilogues	107	(24)
1. Cyberspace sufferers	107	(19)
1.1. "Why not be ahead of my time?"	107	(13)
1.2. "I was the best source of light on the market"	120	(6)
2. Summary	126	(5)
Part 3 The discursive construction of control
Chapter 7 Negotiating the right to advertise the self	131	(10)
1. The healer: "I produce a new mechanism that controls the addictive behavior"	131	(5)
2. The lesbian: "That person didn't have horns and didn't have a beard"	136	(3)
3. Summary	139	(2)
Chapter 8 The construction of addictive disorders in discourse	141	(26)
1. Addictive behaviors and codependency	142	(2)
2. Addicted and codependent selves	144	(16)
2.1. The love addict: "Everything simply started snowballing"	144	(4)
2.2. The obese eater: "I'm a blender"	148	(3)
2.3. The sex addict: "But sex was always something strong inside"	151	(1)
2.4. The abstinent gambler: "I'm not there today"	152	(2)
2.5. An ex-alcoholic's wife: "He becomes a nervous wreck that drags you along"	154	(4)
2.6. The anorexic's mother: "We live in daily hell"	158	(2)
3. Summary	160	(7)
Part 4 Redefining the boundaries of problem discourse
Chapter 9 Theoretical conclusions and action-oriented implications	167	(12)
1. Theoretical conclusions: Global figurative coherence in a multilogue	168	(8)
1.1. Professional and lay voices reshape the boundaries of problem discourse	168	(4)
1.2. Figurative trans-world journeys	172	(4)
2. Action-oriented implications	176	(3)
Epilogue	179	(2)
Notes	181	(12)
References	193	(22)
Author index	215	(4)
Subject index	219