Discourses of Ageing and Gender

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Clare Anderson

   Pages 1-13

3. Cultural Context

   • Clare Anderson

   Pages 15-60

4. Analytic Frameworks

   • Clare Anderson

   Pages 61-71

5. Public Voices: Skincare Advertising and Discourses of “Beauty”

   • Clare Anderson

   Pages 73-112

6. Public Voices: The Media Mirror

   • Clare Anderson

   Pages 113-136

7. Private Voices: Talking About Ageing

   • Clare Anderson

   Pages 137-187

8. Private Voices: Ageing in the Mirror

   • Clare Anderson

   Pages 189-230

9. Transgressive Women: Celebration and Censure

   • Clare Anderson

   Pages 231-248

10. Conclusions and Implications

    • Clare Anderson

    Pages 249-256

11. Back Matter

    Pages 257-275

    PDF

This book presents in-depth investigation of the language used about women and ageing in public discourse, and compares this with the language used by women to express their personal, lived experience of ageing. It takes a linguistic approach to identify how messages contained in public discourse influence how individual women evaluate their own ageing, and particularly their ageing appearance. It begins by establishing the wider cultural context that produces prevailing attitudes to women, before turning to an analysis of representations of the ageing female body in beauty and cosmetic advertising and the lifestyle media. The focus then moves to a detailed investigation of women’s own perceptions of the process of ageing and of their ageing appearance as revealed through their personal narratives. The final chapters challenge dominant attitudes to women and ageing by presenting two case studies of women who for different reasons and in different ways refuse to conform tocultural expectations. This work provides a platform for further academic research in the fields of linguistics, gerontology, gender and media studies; as well as offering meaningful applications in the wider domains of business and advertising.

• sociolinguistics
• gender studies
• appraisal theory
• multimodal analysis
• critical discourse analysis
• gerontology
• feminism
• lifecourse
• lifestyle media
• advertising
• beauty
• public discourse
• personal narratives
• language and identity
• language ideology
• consumerism
• femininity
• the mirror moment
• cultural narrative
• health studies
• language and gender

• Department of English and Applied Linguistics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom

  Clare Anderson

Clare Anderson is Associate Tutor at the University of Birmingham, UK. She also runs a consultancy that specialises in helping individuals, companies and brands to use language to perform more effectively. Her work focuses on women and leadership, and language and diversity.

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