Death-related discourse in assisted living facilities

Death-related discourse in assisted living facilities

Nadia Maraachli

This paper examines the communication styles found in assisted living facilities (ALFs) when discussing the death or process of dying of a resident. ALFs are places of community care for senior citizens needing assistance with daily activities and with end-of-life processes. The main focus of the paper is to understand how staff members discuss dying amongst themselves, with the dying resident and with the resident’s family members through the use of metaphor, circumlocution, and silence. Very few scholars have looked at death-related discourse in relation to what goes on in assisted living facilities. Current literature review of the linguistic research on death discourse, and interviews with six staff members in a southeastern Michigan ALF were used. The findings show that discussions between staff members frequently use taboo words about the dead or dying resident. Discussions between staff members and family members of the dying tend to employ the use of metaphor, circumlocution and euphemism. Discussions between staff and residents about their death or dying do not typically occur. This article also discusses the issues in discourse of not having definitions for key terms in ALFs. Many key words do not have concrete, agreed upon definitions. This work highlights the need for more in-depth ethnographies of ALFs as well as linguistic studies in death-related discourse.