PATTERNS OF SELF-DISCLOSURE: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF CONVERSATION ABOUT HEALTH AMONG IRISH WOMEN.
Contributors: Columbia University. Teachers College.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 212
Subjects: Anthropology, Cultural.; Health Sciences, Nursing.; Speech Communication.
Description: This dissertation is a descriptive analysis of the transcript of an audio recording of three hours of talk among nine women which occurred in Ireland, 1988. This conversation is the ethnographic basis for all that follows in this study: paying close attention to how these women interpret and talk about their everyday experiences when they are asked how and to whom they speak when seeking health care.

There is a need to challenge some of the descriptions of what is Irish communicative behavior in Irish situations. Notions about the verbal talent of the Irish abound; descriptions of everyday talk and how some Irish get through being ordinary are harder to find. Describing how concerns are constructed and organized through the language of the cultural ideology should demystify some of the cultural constraints in the conversations of clients and increase recognition of the import of the cultural component in health care.

The examination of this conversation is informed and influenced by four significant activities: lifelong participation in the everyday conversation of Irish families; twenty-five years of professional encounters with clients--many of whom were Irish; involvement in the anthropological writings on Ireland and the Irish; immersion in the ongoing Irish literary writings on what can or cannot be said in any given Irish situation.

I conclude that the context for talking about health is influenced by what can or cannot be said within the particular cultural expectations of institutions like families, schools, health care systems.

I identify patterns for systematically giving and receiving hints through non-informational talking in the "frontstage" and "backstage" setting. These women pass information through hints and cues that confirm what can and cannot be said. They impose conversational boundaries on each other while "telling" what needs to be told through stories and morality tales. One must be ready for these cues to know that there may be something there. Accept the fact that you will get all the information indirectly; once you understand this--pay close attention, in the "backstage" setting, as they say good-bye.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-11, Section: A, page: 3969.

Thesis (ED.D.)--COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1992.

School code: 0055.