In this paper, the representations of death and dying will be analyzed on the basis of authentic material. Specific terminology used by society when addressing this field of topic will be detected and evaluated.
In the following paper, the novel “The House of God” will be scanned for representations of that terminology through concordance software. The reflection of publicly used terminology within the novel will to a certain extend show the special relevance of death in the hospital setting and in how far death differs from normality in this field. Furthermore it will allow to draw conclusions on how the characters feel towards this topic and to which extend the novel depicts the hospital and the behavior of those who work in it as inhuman and deviating from what is regarded to be the social norm.
Healthcare professionals working in the hospital setting are in the first line concerned with the medical condition of their patients. Moreover, they are trained to master and to alter nearly every possible medical condition they find a patient in and change it for the better. While the aim of every hospital treatment is to cure diseases and to treat injuries until the patients discharge from the institution, the death of a patient counteracts this aim. Where the condition of nearly every disease can be altered or, in the light of a growing number of chronic diseases at least be transformed to a resilient state, death is the ultimate end of these endeavors.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) describes death as “…the act or fact of dying; the end of life; the final cessation of the vital functions […] of an individual.” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2013a) Away from this objective description, the death of a patient, especially when it occurs suddenly and is not expected may be a burdensome event even for medical staff.
Samuel Shems novel ”The House of God” is about the young intern Roy Bash who experiences his first year in the world of professional medicine at the Best Medical Center in Boston, MA. In the course of this year the protagonist experiences various events that revolve around living and dying of patients, colleagues and friends. Since these events take place in the setting of a hospital, they are meant to be dealt with professionally. The way how death is depicted, how it is reflected in the language of the professionals’ at Best Medical Center may differ from the way “the outside world”, the rest of society deals with this topic.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Materials and Methods
2.1 The Novel “The House of God” by Samuel Shem
2.2 Death Notices/ Obituaries
2.3 Death in the Sample Obituaries in Contrast to the Novel
3 Data Collection and Results
3.1 Collection of Samples from Contemporary Newspapers
3.2 Concordance- Aided Analysis of “The House of God”
3.2.1 pass/ passing (of)/ passed/ passed away
3.2.2 loss (of)/ demise (of)
3.2.3 death (of)/ death/ death occurred/ died/ die
3.2.4 was killed/ killed/ kill
4 Discussion and Conclusion
Research Objectives and Themes
The research examines how terminology related to death and dying, as commonly used in public discourse, is reflected or deviated from within the professional medical setting of Samuel Shem’s novel "The House of God." It aims to determine if the linguistic choices of characters in a hospital environment mirror the euphemisms found in newspaper obituaries or if they adopt a different, potentially more direct or clinical, register due to the omnipresence of mortality in their daily work.
- Comparison of "public" vs. "professional" death-related terminology.
- Linguistic analysis of 1970s newspaper obituaries as a baseline.
- Concordance-based software analysis of the novel "The House of God."
- Investigation into the impact of professional socialization on language regarding mortality.
- Identification of idiomatic expressions for death in fiction and real-world media.
Excerpt from the Book
3.2.1 pass/ passing (of)/ passed/ passed away
As passing (of) was the most frequently used item in the sample obituaries (total count: 130) it will be dealt with first. Passing can be found in the novel four times. There is not a single appearance which stands as an idiom for death or dying. The idiom passed away could not be found in the novel. For this reason an additional search for passed results in 16 hits where none thereof carried a meaning significant in terms of this paper. Another search for pass yields 4 hits with the same results.
Summary of Chapters
1 Introduction: This chapter defines the medical perspective on death and introduces the research objective to analyze how the terminology of death is portrayed in Samuel Shem’s "The House of God" compared to public discourse.
2 Materials and Methods: This section provides the theoretical background, introduces the novel "The House of God" as the primary source, and justifies the use of 1970s newspaper obituaries as the comparative dataset for authentic death-related language.
3 Data Collection and Results: This chapter details the extraction of data from 999 newspaper obituaries and the subsequent concordance-aided analysis of the novel, documenting the frequency and usage context of specific death-related terms.
4 Discussion and Conclusion: This chapter synthesizes the findings, revealing that while public obituaries rely heavily on euphemistic idiomatic expressions, the language within the novel tends to be more direct, reflecting the hospital staff's professional and emotional coping mechanisms.
Keywords
The House of God, Samuel Shem, Death Terminology, Obituaries, Linguistic Analysis, Concordance, Professional Vernacular, Medical Humanities, Idioms, Death and Dying, Hospital Setting, Sociolinguistics, Phraseology, Mortality, Euphemism
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this research paper?
The paper investigates the representations of death-related terminology in Samuel Shem’s novel "The House of God," comparing them to the authentic language used in 1970s newspaper obituaries.
What are the central themes discussed in the work?
The central themes include the linguistics of death, the contrast between societal euphemisms and professional medical jargon, and how constant exposure to patient mortality influences the language of healthcare providers.
What is the main research question?
The research asks to what extent the death-related concepts found in public media (obituaries) are reflected or altered within the internal, professional language environment depicted in the novel.
Which scientific method was applied for the analysis?
The author utilized a concordance-aided analysis using "AntConc" software to search for specific death-related tokens in the text of the novel, following a quantitative analysis of 1970s newspaper obituary data.
What does the main body of the work cover?
It covers the selection and classification of "authentic" death language from newspapers, the methodology of using concordance software, and a systematic breakdown of how terms like "pass," "loss," "death," and "killed" are used in the novel.
Which keywords best characterize this publication?
Keywords include "The House of God," "death terminology," "obituaries," "linguistic analysis," "medical humanities," and "sociolinguistics."
How does the usage of the term "loss" differ between the novel and the obituaries?
In the obituaries, "loss" is often used as a standard euphemism, whereas in the novel, it is primarily applied when characters express deep personal feelings, specifically in the context of mourning the death of a colleague.
Why are "killed" and "kill" frequently appearing in the novel compared to the obituaries?
These terms appear more frequently in the novel due to the specific thematic focus on suicide, the intense pressure of medical practice, and the protagonist’s fears or actions regarding the active termination of life, which contrasts with the single occurrence in the obituary sample.
What conclusion does the author draw regarding professional language?
The author concludes that professionals in a hospital setting tend to use more direct language for death due to its "daily business" nature, though they still resort to sensitive, euphemistic language when personally or emotionally impacted by a death.
- Quote paper
- Jan Stolzewski (Author), 2013, How do Healthcare Professionals Cope with Death? Representations of Death-related Terminology in “The House of God” by Samuel Shem, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/302803
