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Article published In:
Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 29:1 (2019) ► pp.29–49

Letter to a grandchild as a narrative tool of older adults’ biographical experience exploration

| Pedagogical University of Krakow
| Warsaw University
| Warsaw University

The paper purports to present a method that allows to obtain and analyze letters written by older adults to their real or imaginary grandchildren. This enables an insight into their individual life experience. The study used a narrative paradigm. Letter texts were obtained from 128 older adults from Poland, both male and female. Data was analyzed with mixed methods combining qualitative content analysis (using inductive analytical categories described in originally created Coder Completion Sheet) with frequency count. The analysis allowed a systematic description of content (themes in wisdom legacy) and the differentiation of two major formal patterns in the letters: (1) the narrative mode (storytelling); (2) the argumentative mode (legacy without narrative examples: advice, warnings, and wishes). The outcomes demonstrate the letter technique may be recommended for future research in psychology, narrative gerontology and for used in applied psychology also.

Keywords: narrative approach, letter technique, biographical experience, wisdom transmission
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Design and methods
    • Research group and procedure
    • Letter writing task
    • Data analysis
    • Letter type (see Table 2)
    • Text mode (see Table 2)
    • Time coverage of a story (see Table 2)
    • A period in life (see Table 2)
    • Content type and protagonists (see Table 2)
    • Persuasive function of narrative passages (see Table 2)
    • Elements in the argumentative mode (see Table 2)
    • Rationale (see Table 2)
  • Results
    • Letter types and categorization by mode
    • Text modes
    • Narrative mode analysis
    • Protagonist, social scene and described events
    • Types of persuasive function of narrative passages
    • Argumentative mode analysis
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 2 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.18049.tok
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