About
19
Publications
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135
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
My research focuses on the analysis of figurative language production to provide insights into physical, psychological and social experiences, with a current focus on the experience of grief and bereavement. I am particularly interested in how individuals use figurative language in creative ways to help them to understand, conceptualise and communicate their experiences, and how an analysis of such language can be used to inform better care.
Publications
Publications (19)
Creative metaphor has been of central interest to the cognitive linguistic research community in recent years. However, little is known about what propels people to use metaphor in a creative way. In this Element, the authors identify and explore some of the clues that synaesthesia may provide to help us better understand the factors that drive cre...
In this two-part article, we investigate communication with parents following the death of a child. Parents who have lost a child need to communicate with a wide range of professionals, and the quality of the communication that parents have with these groups can radically affect their experience of bereavement. In this UK-based interview study, we...
In this two-part article, we investigate communication with parents following the death of a child. Parents who have lost a child need to communicate with a wide range of professionals, and the quality of the communication that parents have with these groups can radically affect their experience of bereavement. In this UK-based interview study, we...
Objectives
To offer an interpretation of bereaved parents’ evaluations of communication with healthcare practitioners (HCPs) surrounding the death of a child.
Design
Interpretative qualitative study employing thematic and linguistic analyses of metaphor embedded in interview data.
Setting
England and Scotland.
Participants
24 bereaved parents (2...
Language plays a key role in religion, framing how people describe spiritual experience and giving structure to religious beliefs and practices. Bringing together work from a team of world-renowned scholars, this volume introduces contemporary research on religious discourse from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives. It introduc...
Objectives To offer an interpretation of bereaved parents' evaluations of communication with healthcare practitioners surrounding the death of a child.
Design Interpretative qualitative study employing thematic and linguistic analyses of metaphor embedded in interview data.
Setting England and Scotland.
Participants 24 bereaved parents (21 women, 3...
It has been suggested that metaphor often performs some sort of evaluative function. However, there have been few empirical studies addressing this issue. Moreover, little is known about the extent to which a metaphor needs to be creative in order to perform an evaluative function, or whether there are differences according to the type of evaluatio...
Each year in the UK there are approximately 250,000 miscarriages, 3,000 stillbirths and 3,000 terminations following a diagnosis of fetal-abnormality. This paper draws from original empirical research into the experience of pregnancy loss and the accompanying decisionmaking processes. A key finding is that there is considerable variation across Eng...
Following a pregnancy loss, both the woman’s body and that of the fetus have somewhat uncertain statuses; both occupy a liminal space between different states of being. The woman has begun to develop an identity as a mother but cannot perform this identity with this particular child in the way she had expected; she has lost something that was physi...
Pregnancy loss, encompassing miscarriage, stillbirth and termination for foetal abnormality, can be considered a particularly intense and unique form of bereavement, which engenders difficult or painful emotions. When people are talking about such emotions, they have been found to make extensive use of metaphor ( Semino, 2011 ). In this paper, we u...
Research into stillbirth memento photography shows the practice to be welcomed by the bereaved. The visual attributes and content of stillbirth memento photographs are yet to be rigorously analysed however, representing a significant gap in current understanding. This study seeks to address this. 51 professionally produced stillbirth memento photog...
With the recent launch of the National Bereavement Care Pathways in the UK (http://www.nbcpathway.org.uk/pathways/) that are designed to help professionals to support families in their bereavement after any pregnancy loss, there has been an increased interest in aligning the care provided to the needs that are expressed by the bereaved parents. In...
Introduction to a special section of WSIF "The presence of absence: Tensions and frictions of pregnancy losses".
The article aims to provide a critical review of 23 studies that have used metaphor analysis to provide insight into academic literacy research over the past 30 years. It begins by summarising some of the key issues and trends that have been addressed using metaphor analysis, grouping these into two broad categories: metaphor as a methodological to...
This document provides an overview of preliminary findings from our research project which, is a socio-legal, linguistic study of how people in England who have experienced miscarriage, termination, and stillbirth reach decisions concerning the disposal of the remains of pregnancy, how their perceptions of the law impact on their decision-making, a...
Recent studies in linguistics have shown that metaphor is ubiquitous. This has important consequences for language learners
who need to use it appropriately in their speech and writing. This study aims to provide a preliminary measure of the amount
and distribution of metaphor used by language learners in their writing across Common European Framew...
Projects
Projects (2)
This two-year ESRC-funded project (2016-18) aims to examine how people in England who have experienced miscarriage, termination, and stillbirth reach decisions concerning the disposal of the remains of pregnancy, how the perceptions of the law impact on their decision-making, and how they communicate their experiences and choices to those there to support them.
The research will inform and improve government policy and care pathways of people who have faced such experiences.
