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Part of
Corpus Pragmatic Studies on the History of Medical Discourse
Edited by Turo Hiltunen and Irma Taavitsainen
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 330] 2022
► pp. 273–296

Chapter 12
How old is old?

The discourse of “good” ageing in nineteenth-century self-help medical texts

Life expectancy in developed countries has increased significantly over the past two centuries. This study contributes to the existing literature on how “old age” was defined and described at the onset of this development, namely in nineteenth-century British self-help texts, directed at advising people on medical practices to age well, or cure specific ailments. Eighteen texts were retrieved from the online library of the Wellcome Collection (https://​wellcomecollection​.org/), employing the search term “old age”. A selection of these were analysed in depth, using specialised discourse analysis and critical genre analysis and also relying on socio-historical insights. These texts represent a diverse range of genres and contents employing various linguistic strategies and, thus, contributing to increasing the hybridity of the self-help manual genre in a time of great scientific and social change.

Keywords: elderly, self-help manuals, nineteenth century, English, Britain, medical discourse, genre analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and sources
  • 3.Methods
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Comparing the four sample texts
      • 4.1.1Pages, prices, publishers
      • 4.1.2Public and purpose
      • 4.1.3Topics and genre
    • 4.2Defining old age
    • 4.3The ailments of old age and their remedies
  • 5.Discussion of findings
  • 6.Conclusions, limits and developments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 July 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.330.12gre
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