Emergency: A Cesarean Twin Birth Story

07/13/19 • 17 min

Birth Words: Language For a Better Birth

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 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

Previous Episode

Linguistics: An Overview

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 a...

Next Episode

Discourse: Ways of Speaking and Ways of Being in Birth

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...