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In:Discourses on the Edges of Life
Edited by Vicent Salvador †, Adéla Kotátková and Ignasi Clemente
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 26] 2020
► pp. 67–84

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Giving meaning to illness and death

End-of-life approaches in online stories by adolescents and young adults with cancer

 | Universitat de València
 | Universitat de València
Published online: 9 April 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ivitra.26.05dom
Abstract
In recent years, adolescents and young adults (ayas) with cancer and survivors of childhood cancer have started to organize as a collective in Europe. In this context, associations have included in their websites stories by young people diagnosed with cancer or who have gone through the disease. In this study, four of these websites (two in Spanish and two in English) are analyzed to obtain information on how ayas approach the subject of death in their stories. From the total of 128 studied stories, explicit references to death appear in 30. Discourse analysis will show us how ayas give meaning to the end of their own and their friends’ life.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methods
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1By category
      • Previous experiences of cancer death in family and friends
      • Cancer is not death
      • Risk of dying
      • Life-threatening event
      • Dead hospital fellows
      • Losing the fear of dying
      • Second chance to live
      • Acceptance of death
    • 3.2By time of narration
      • Diagnosis
      • Treatment
      • Disease-free survivor
      • End-of-life
      • Overall experience
    • 3.3Cultural differences
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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