0
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      The Final Fight: An Analysis of Metaphors in Online Obituaries of Professional Athletes

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisher
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          In literature, obituaries from different cultures and languages have been studied on different levels and from different perspectives. One of the popular research topics is the use of metaphors, since metaphors help to cope with death, which in modern society is still a taboo. This article presents a bottom-up, primarily qualitative analysis of the metaphors in 150 obituaries of sportspeople, published in online versions of newspapers/magazines and on the Internet. As expected, the obituaries contain the traditional metaphors of death. Also more original, creative metaphors are introduced to describe death in a euphemistic way. Some of those have a link to sports but not systematically to the sport practiced by the deceased.

          Related collections

          Most cited references26

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Maintaining relational continuity with the deceased on Facebook.

          Scholars have noted that communication helps maintain relational continuity despite physical absence; yet, the specific role of communication in continuing a relationship with the deceased has not been analyzed. In this study, messages directed to the deceased on Facebook memorial group walls were examined to explore how grieving individuals utilize Facebook memorial groups in order to make sense of the death of a loved one and reconnect with the deceased. Using a grounded theory approach, message topics and apparent grief-related functions served by messages were identified and characterized. Initial observation revealed that grieving individuals wrote to the deceased as if the deceased could read the messages, which is a unique type of communication. The communication written to the deceased individuals appeared to serve two functions for those writing the messages: (1) Sensemaking; and (2) Continuing Bonds, or upholding relational continuity, with the deceased.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Mortality patterns among US veterinarians, 1947-1977: an expanded study.

            Causes of death among 5016 white male veterinarians identified from obituary listings in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association were compared to a distribution based on the general US population. Proportions of deaths were significantly elevated for cancers of the lymphatic and haematopoietic system, colon, brain, and skin. Fewer deaths were observed than expected for cancers of the stomach and lung. Although socio-economic and methodological factors may be involved, the patterns suggest that sunlight exposure is responsible for the excess of skin cancer among veterinarians whose practices are not exclusively limited to small animals, and ionizing radiation exposure contributes to the excess of leukaemia among veterinarians practising during years when diagnostic radiology became widely used. Mortality was also high for motor vehicle accidents and suicides, but low for diseases of the respiratory system.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: found
              Is Open Access

              Dead academics: what can we learn about academic work and life from obituaries?

              This article analyses the obituaries of 100 academics published in the British quality press in 2007 to see what they tell us about the changing nature of contemporary academic work, and how it is presented in this particular genre of writing. It concludes that the influence of Oxbridge and the American higher education system, and the dominance of men, remain strong in the senior levels of academic life that make it into the obituary pages. The obituaries also illustrate the impact of global events and trends, such as world war and the international mobility of highly skilled labour, on academe. At an individual level, they present a picture of almost mythic achievement, brought down to earth by accounts of caring and essential eccentricity.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
                Omega (Westport)
                SAGE Publications
                0030-2228
                1541-3764
                September 2019
                June 20 2017
                September 2019
                : 79
                : 4
                : 364-376
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Faculty of Arts, KU Leuven—Campus Antwerpen Sint-Andries, Belgium
                Article
                10.1177/0030222817715757
                5d8f7516-8495-499e-92cd-c62458e4b7fe
                © 2019

                http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license

                History

                Comments

                Comment on this article