‘Disallowed identities’ and what to call them
Perinatal bereavement is one of the most challenging yet unspoken types of grief. In many European languages the lack of a lexicalised item to refer to prematurely deceased babies and their parents witnesses to the stigmatization that still broadly surrounds perinatal death, making it difficult to i...
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| Xuất bản năm: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/cognitextes, |
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| Những tác giả chính: | , , |
| Định dạng: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Ngôn ngữ: | Anglais |
| Được phát hành: |
CogniTextes
2026
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| Những chủ đề: | |
| Truy cập trực tuyến: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Tóm tắt: | Perinatal bereavement is one of the most challenging yet unspoken types of grief. In many European languages the lack of a lexicalised item to refer to prematurely deceased babies and their parents witnesses to the stigmatization that still broadly surrounds perinatal death, making it difficult to identify, let alone acknowledge, those who have experienced it. In the context of perinatal death, identifying new terms to designate parents and their deceased babies affirms the reality of their bereaved condition, which can prove beneficial to tackle the invisibility of perinatal loss and help prevent cases of dysfunctional grief, as defended by hypostatization theory.This paper reflects on the issue of designation in the French language of deceased babies and their parents. We investigate this question by means of a survey based on questionnaires administered to a total of 181 bereaved parents (88 male, 91 female, 2 empty answers). The parents’ responses are analysed via three different methods: a descriptive analysis, an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and an analysis using Item Response Theory (IRT). The descriptive analysis reveals a strong agreement among the bereaved parents as to which words they are more prone to use. The exploratory factor analysis uncovers three meaningful clusters in their responses, which represent three latent semantic traits: (i) metaphor-based terms, (ii) more conventional expressions of mourning, and (iii) terms referring to absence or loss. The IRT-analysis links these tendencies to socio-demographic variables (such as age, gender, involvement in help groups, religion, etc.) that influence the choice of one lexical formation over another. |
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