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Shame: Challenging Linguistic Strategies of Representation

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(Mis)Representing Weight and Obesity in the British Press

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Abstract

This final analysis chapter explores self-representations in the personal stories found in newspaper articles. The personal stories identified typically follow two storylines: an individual who had obesity and has undergone weight loss, and an individual living with obesity discussing the emotional and physical challenges. Within the 604 personal stories, I follow four prevalent linguistic patterns: feel + adjective, felt + adjective, I + was and I + am. In doing so, I was able to investigate the linguistic strategies of representation they draw on to describe their thin identities and indeed their past/present fat identities. I explore the extent to which these individuals have internalised the oppressive weight-based stereotypes, and discuss whether the current linguistic strategies of representation account for the phenomenon of internalised bias.

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  1. Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Tara Coltman-Patel

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  1. Tara Coltman-Patel
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Correspondence to Tara Coltman-Patel .

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Coltman-Patel, T. (2023). Shame: Challenging Linguistic Strategies of Representation. In: (Mis)Representing Weight and Obesity in the British Press. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44854-6_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44854-6_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-44853-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-44854-6

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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