Birth Words: Language For a Better Birth

In this episode, I unpack a personal experience with miscarriage to shed light on some factors that make miscarriage a difficult experience. I use an autoethnographic lens--Dell Hymes' SPEAKING framework--to consider a communicative interaction that occurred during a personal miscarriage experience.

This episode explores an important and sensitive topic. I unpack my own experiences with infertility in light of related linguistic and psychological work. REFERENCES: Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: A critical introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jaffe, J., Diamnod, M.O., and Diamond, D. (2005). Unsung lullabies: understanding and coping with infertility. New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin. Pennycook, A. (2007). Global Englishes and transcultural flows (pp. 58-77). New York, NY: Routledge.

In this episode, my friend Joanie tells the story of her first birth. Joanie says that if she had to describe her birth experience in just one word, she'd call it ​transformational.

In Episode 5, I tell the story of my life-changing VBAC and how I prepared for it by immersing myself in positive narratives and language practices. URLS mentioned in this episode: www.summitbirthutah.com/birthwords REFERENCES: Gaskin, I. M., (2003). Ina May's guide to childbirth. New York, NY: Bantam Dell. Austine, F., Axman, L., Farrell, H., Allgood, R., & Ripley, S. (2012). The Gift of Giving Life: Rediscovering the Divine Nature of Pregnancy and Childbirth. Culver City, CA: Madison & West Publishers.

In episode 4, Sara explains the linguistic concept of discourse (and Discourse) and what that looks like in a birth setting. Listen to this episode to learn more! URLS mentioned in this episode: www.summitbirthutah.com/birthwords

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello and welcome to Episode 4: Discourse. We are going to talk today about a man named James Paul Gee. He is a notable linguist--he's still around today, and he did a lot of work in defining a term called "discourse." So, Gee differentiates between Little D "discourse," as in the word "discourse," spelled with a lowercase D, and Big D "Discourse," as in the word "Discourse" spelled with a capital D. So little D discourse is simply language in use, that is, in its context, and I say simply, but it's really not so simple. We can analyze language within a specific context and that is called studying discourse. Then Gee talks also about big D Discourse, which he uses to include not just language in a context but all of the other semiotic systems at work in that context. So you remember, in an earlier episode, we talked about how language is a semiotic system. It's the use of signs, symbols, words are really signs or symbols to communicate meaning. And Gee talks about how the words we use are not the only things that communicate meaning in a given situation, and that come into play when we're communicating. So, for instance, police Discourse--big D Discourse—includes not only the way that police officers tend to talk, officially, what types of words they tend to use, the way they tend to structure sentences and phrases, but also, the police uniform, the police car, values that are typically held by a police officer, and behavior that tends to go along with a police officer. So Gee talks about how when you think about what Big D Discourse means, it's basically what would you need to imitate to pull off impersonating somebody in a different… that isn't who you are. I think he talks about being like, a mobster or something, and how if he said the right phrases that are typically used in that context, but wore the wrong clothes, he wouldn't be taken seriously. Or vice versa, wearing the right clothes, saying the wrong things, not following all of the different sign-giving systems that indicate identity and how you operate within a context. So let's talk about the two big D Discourses as they relate… that come up a lot in birth. So I say to I think that many who work in birth would agree that there are two prominent discourses, but also that they're not wholly separate or different from one another. So one researcher, actually two working together, put it this way: "People who work in labor and delivery are fluent in two dialects, they can converse in either and they can talk reflectively about and across them." So what are these two dialects as McCaffrey and Mannion termed them or Discourses, as Gee would them, and as I'm calling them today? The first is the medical discourse of birth. It includes things like terminology that's used more in a medical birth setting, it tends to take place in a medical scene: in a hospital, or during pregnancy and the physician's clinic. Terms are used, such as dilation, effacement, contraction, pain level, fetal tracings, amniotic sac, gestation, amniotomy cervical change, and lots of others. Many more complex and jargon-y than the ones that I that I listed. It also comes with other contextual factors: scrubs, a hospital, a hospital bed, hospital equipment, interventions that are commonly used in this setting, such as epidurals, such as amniohooks to break water, such as fetal and contraction monitors for tracing fetal heart tones and intensity and frequency of contractions. Along with this Discourse—this package—comes beliefs. About when the intervention is good or needed. The role of a care provider in relation to the patient who, in this situation a birthgiver is positioned often as a patient in this discourse. There are beliefs, also, that tend to come in this package, about the ability of the birthgiver to birth without intervention, who is in a position of authority and what is the nature of birth. And I'm not going to spell out what each of those beliefs might be, because they are unique to each individual practicing within this Discourse. And it's not necessarily true that they come as a package and each care provider has all of them. But the language used in this discourse often reflects the prominent beliefs and values that are found within this discourse, and which this discourse tends to see birth more as a medical condition that needs to be treated. (And I want to thank Dr. Stephen Roushar of FLOW chiropractic in Lehi, for his help with this terminology that differentiates between these two Discourses.) The medical Discourse, again, is the Discourse which sees pregnancy and birth as a medical condition to be treated. Whereas the other Discourse that I've been referring to is a physiological Discourse, which sees pregnancy and birth as a physiological process to be supported, in contrast to that condition to be treated. So moving on to this second Discourse, physiological birth. There are terms that come along with this Discourse. And again, these terms are not used by everyone within the Discourse, and there's a lot of variability, but terms like wave and surge instead of contraction often are found in this Discourse. Sometimes people in this Discourse speak of opening rather than dilation, as it has a more natural connotation. And some within this Discourse, we tend to differentiate, differentiate between the intense and powerful sensations felt during labor and pain. They don't identify the uterus's contractions or waves or surges as pain but rather as pressure, intensity. And something that's acknowledging that the body is doing the work that it needs to do, whereas pain tends to convey the opposite message about what's going on in the body. Pain is normally indicative of something being wrong in the body, something that needs to be fixed, whereas, in the birth process physiologically, pain is—the intensity of those feelings—is not an indication that something's going wrong, but rather that the body is working just as it should, in this process. Also, within this Discourse, it comes along with other contextual factors. Scrubs are not worn as often, maybe more of just layman's clothes, and birth can take place in the hospital and this Discourse can be used. But often this Discourse is found in a home birth or a birth center birth. And there may still be some of the same equipment and interventions, but not many of the same. And there are different beliefs within this Discourse about intervention and its role, when it's good when it's needed. There are different beliefs about the role of a care provider in relation to the client, as they're normally called, in this scenario, in this Discourse. And there are different beliefs about the ability of the birth giver to give birth without intervention, who is in a position of authority, and what is in what is the nature of birth. So, these two Discourses operate in a parallel way, they also intersect all the time. The two Discourses can exist in the same place at the same time, and sometimes even in the same person. Or a person may subconsciously, without realizing it, be speaking the language of one Discourse while identifying themselves or finding their beliefs within the other Discourse. So, throughout this podcast, we'll come back to this concept of Discourse. And we'll keep thinking about what our language reveals about our underlying beliefs. And what how we position birth givers and what the role of authority figures is. And so I'm excited to keep going with you on this journey as we look at language and birth. See you next week.

Outro: Did words play an important role in your birth experience? If you're interested in sharing your story on the podcast, go to summitbirthutah.com/birthwords. If you're liking what you hear on the podcast, please leave a review on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, or wherever you choose to listen. For more resources about harnessing the power of words to benefit the birth experience, visit summitbirthutah.com/birth words

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

REFERENCES: Gee, J. P. (2014). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (4th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. McCaffery, G., & Mannion, C. (2016). In hospital thou shalt bring forth children: Reflections on the language of childbirth. Unpublished manuscript.

In this episode, Sara tells the story of her first birth experience: an emergency c-section with twins. She considers the role that her self-imposed identity labels played during pregnancy and birth.

URLS referenced:

http://www.summitbirthutah.com/birthwords

In this episode, Sara gives an overview of the different branches of linguistics and coins the term "perinatal linguistics" to describe the work at the intersection of birth work and applied linguistics. As a perinatal linguist, Sara uses the knowledge, theories, and frameworks of linguistics to describe situations and experiences within pregnancy and birth and aims to improve the pregnancy and birth experience for birthgivers.

URLS mentioned in this episode:

www.summitbirthutah.com/birthwords

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. Welcome, welcome to the second episode of the Birth Words podcast, where we talk about linguistics.

I think linguistics is one of those words that people have heard, but are kind of only generally aware of what it really means. And to be honest, those that study linguistics don't necessarily all agree. So we'll talk generally about what linguistics means.

The first clarification that I want to give is that linguistics is not about rules about how you should speak. But it's about studying instead, how people do speak. Why do they speak in the ways that they do, and to what effect? What difference does it make when people speak in certain ways, and what underlies the choices that people make in the words that they choose? So in linguistics, we talk about language as a semiotic system: Signs are used to communicate meaning. In some languages, like American Sign Language, this is very obvious—that literally a sign is used to communicate meaning. But when you think about language, that's really all that words are as well: a sign. A verbal sign that communicates meaning to those in a given community that use the same signs to communicate similar meaning. And it's not always the same for every person. But there's generally a level of mutual intelligibility among speakers of the same language, and specifically the same dialect of a language.

So, some questions to consider as we think about language as a semiotic system: (Again, that means signs are used to communicate to meaning.) Questions we can ask: what meaning is being communicated? Is the meaning that's being communicated the intended meaning? And what effect does it have on the hearer? Is it empowering or disempowering to the hearer? Is it respectful? Is it a language, a dialect that your interlocutor, the person that you're speaking with, also speaks? Or is there some interplay of different native dialects going on?

So I turned today for my introductory linguistics episode to a favorite textbook from college. And back when I thought that I was going to study English and minor in editing, I took a basic course in English language and the textbook for the course was Linguistics for Non-Linguists. And I loved it. I underlined like way too much really, really nerdy stuff in it. Kept it on the shelf for years. And I plan to use it as a reference for this podcast quite a bit, as its title is Linguistics for Non-Linguists, and non-linguists are my target audience for this podcast.

So Parker and Riley, the authors of the book, tell us that linguistic theory is "the study of the psychological system of language." And they clarify "psychological system" to mean "the internalized, unconscious knowledge that enables a speaker to produce and understand utterances in his or her native language." So again, when we speak, there's so much going on underneath it that's internalized and unconscious, that enables us to communicate.

And so linguists really look at,

How is that meaning communicated?

To what effect? and

Why is it communicated in the way that it is? and

What does it all mean?

So linguists study observable data, namely how people are speaking. They make hypotheses about what it indicates about the speakers' internal psychological linguistic system, and then they make theories to attempt to explain the system. There are lots of branches of linguistics. Pragmatics means how language is used to communicate within a context. Semantics looks at the meaning of words, sentences and phrases. Syntax is the study of phrases, clauses and sentences. Morphology is the study of word formation. You notice we're getting narrower and narrower with each of these categories. Phonology is the study of sound systems of language and pronunciation.

And then there are other lots and lots of other branches that we can look at with linguistics. We can talk about linguistic variation among different social different regions, ethnicities and genders. We can study language acquisition—how does that happen? What are the norms? What happens when there's an intersection of different language communities? And we can talk about language processing. How do we understand one another through language? Psycholinguistics looks at how this really happens in our minds. Discourse analysis closely studies how people understand one another and how they often don't. And neurolinguistics is an interesting branch that talks about how the brain processes language

My specific… Well, it's not actually that specific, it's another rather broad arm of linguistics or sister to linguistics, is applied linguistics. And I really liked Wikipedia's definition of Applied Linguistics, so we're going to go with that: "Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field which identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems." So, as applied linguists, we look at what these different linguistic branches and theories and frameworks can do in real life. We have real life problems going on with things involving language, and how can we apply our knowledge and our theories to make these problems better—to better understand them?

So, there are some different branches of applied linguistics: conversation analysis, which is fairly self-explanatory—analyzing conversation, and how the norms of conversation are followed and when conversation understanding breaks down; discourse analysis, which looks at broad fields of language, language in use, and analyzes how language is used in different contexts; critical discourse analysis, which views language as a social practice. And it examines the societal power relations that come and the role that language plays in power relations. There's forensic linguistics, which is a really interesting application, and multilingualism, and so much more that applied linguists study.

So now, today, I am officially coining the term perinatal linguistics. So I'm applying the knowledge, methods, and theories of linguistics to the perinatal context: the experiences leading up to, during, and immediately following childbirth. So on this podcast will be telling stories, we'll be examining the stories from linguistic frameworks, we'll be delving into important topics at the intersection of birth and language. And if you have suggestions for topics you'd like to dig into on the podcast, please submit your suggestions. I would love to hear them. You can go to www.summitbirthutah.com/birth words, that URL will be in the show notes. And there will be a place there for you to submit your suggestions. And also, if you're interested in sharing your birth story and the role that language played in it, I would love to hear that as well. I'd love to have you as a guest on the podcast. There's a forum at the website www.summitbirthutah.com/birtwords, and you can submit a request to share your story on the podcast. I'm looking forward to hearing your ideas and suggestions. I'm looking forward to sharing my ideas with you. So tune in next Monday. Bye!

Outro:

Did words play an important role in your birth experience? If you're interested in sharing your story on the podcast, go to summitbirthutah.com/birthwords. If you're liking what you hear on the podcast, please leave a review on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, or wherever you choose to listen. For more resources about harnessing the power of words to benefit the birth experience, visit summitbirthutah.com/birthwords

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

REFERENCES:

Parker, F. & Riley, K. (2004). Linguistics for non-linguists (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon, Inc.

Applied Linguistics. (2019). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_linguistics

In this episode, Sara tells the backstory about how the Birth Words podcast came to be.

URLS mentioned during this episode: www.summitbirthutah.com/birthwords