Holt1993

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Holt1993
BibType ARTICLE
Key Holt1993
Author(s) Elizabeth Holt
Title The structure of death announcements: Looking on the bright side of death
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Announcements, Death Announcements, Overall Structural Organization
Publisher
Year 1993
Language
City
Month
Journal Text
Volume 13
Number 2
Pages 189–212
URL Link
DOI 10.1515/text.1.1993.13.2.189
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This is an analysis of death announcements in ordinary conversation. It appears that the sequential pattern of death announcements is surprisingly uniform: the examples in this corpus can be described in terms of a number of segments through which one speaker announces a death and the news is evaluated. These evaluations of the news frequently become increasingly positive ending in a 'bright side sequence' in which the speakers take an overtly positive stance to the news. Thus, although the death announcement may be explicitly introduced and/or receipted as bad news in the first instance, further on in the topic the speakers collaborate in 'looking on the bright side'. The bright side sequence in the examples is followed by, and seems to help facilitate, topic closure.

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