Being old, old people and the burdens of burden
Anthony M. Warnes
Bok Engelsk
| Omfang | 42 s.
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| Utgave | Særtrykk/Kopi
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| Opplysninger | Abstract Burden is today often applied to elderly people in two senses, for the fiscal load for income support and health and social care costs, and for notions and scales of care-giving effort and stress. It does not however convey straightforward meanings for its understading is affected by two millenia of metaphorical and rhetorical usage. The use of burden tends to simplify relationships, wether between age-groups of a population or between a carer and an elderly person, and it communicates senses of a nuisance and an excessive charge. Portentous implications are invoked from biblical senses and derogatory overtones are strengthened by association, eralier this century, with racial stereotyping. An etymological survey reveals many sources of the words' versality and rhetorical power. Important extensions of usage towards the two contemporary gerontological applications are then studied. A bibloimetric examination of the surge in the word's social science use since the early 1980's is undertaken, and the paper concludes with a discussion of current usage as evidence of current attitudes towards, and constructions of, old age on the part of politicians and policy analysts.
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