Language, Body, and Health

This edited book addresses ways in which 'bodies' conceived broadly – get languaged, and ways in which ideas of 'normalcy' and 'normal' bodies are held in place and reproduced. The articles show how it is through this medium that people with ailments or 'unusual' bodies get positioned and slotted in certain ways. The present volume represents a departure from other works in at least two ways. First, it brings in discourses around bodies per se into language-related research, a realm that previous research has not directly engaged. Second, it ushers in discussions about bodies by critically addressing the language by which experiences around bodily breakdowns and ailments occur. Calling attention to a host of discourses – biomedical, societal, poststructuralist – and drawing on a variety of disciplinary perspectives, critical theories, ethnographically gathered materials, and extant data, the chapters pierce the general veil of silence that we have collectively drawn regarding how some of our most intimate body (dis)functions impact our everyday living and sense of "normalcy".