Chapter published in:
Language Learning, Discourse and Cognition: Studies in the tradition of Andrea Tyler
Edited by Lucy Pickering and Vyvyan Evans
[Human Cognitive Processing 64] 2018
► pp. 63–82

Senior confessions

Narratives of self-disclosure

This study is an ethnographic analysis of narratives of self-disclosure in the context of recurring happy hour events among “the new old” – people in their sixties who are recently retired or who are about to do so. The storytellers herein share recollections that divulge past transgressions, disclosing identities that are sometimes conflicting. In so doing, they reveal identities of foolishness at a younger age that they claim to have “remedied” through maturation. Revealing personal information is, in general, perceived as a risky business. For the conversations observed here, these groups form a ‘temporary’ bond that seeks common ground and accepts a ‘temporary’ understanding of what this personal information means and how it is to be evaluated.
Keywords: discourse analysis, narrative, relational identity
Published online: 20 December 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.64.04box
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