As a fan of obituaries, oral histories and encounters with people who have had long lives, I was delighted to come across a humanities study finding that conversation is good for the subjects of the stories, too. Yoshiko Matsumoto, PhD, a Stanford professor of Japanese language and linguistics, has been studying conversations of older people, who, with long lives, have faced challenges such as health problems and losses of loved ones. Her research documents which types of conversation play a particularly important role in supporting the subjects' well-being and can provide family members and care providers "potential tools for building resiliency following change."
More from a recent Stanford Report article:
Matsumoto's most recent work specifically focuses on older women's discourse about the illness or death of their husbands, with particular attention to conversations that also include humor and laughter. "These instances are not uncommon in my data, although they are a surprising combination," Matsumoto says.
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Matsumoto's linguistic analyses of more than 60 hours of recorded conversations illustrate that there is in fact a structure to such discourse. Her findings suggest that by reframing a serious story through an ordinary, or "quotidian," perspective, the women she studied infused their dialogue with cathartic smiles.
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In one instance, a woman jokingly described how she used to chide her husband about his smoking and drinking habits – the very cause of his death. Matsumoto notes that by shifting the narrative perspective from somber to the ordinary, the speaker helped everyone involved regain the feeling of normality.
Previously: Depression, lifestyle choices shown to adversely affect memory across age groups, Helping older adults live independently using mobile-health technology and How social media and online communities can improve clinical care for elderly patients
Photo by Debs
