The Poetics of the Body in Pain: Wordlessness, Figurative Language and the Chronic Pain Experience

Abstract

Pre-linguistic expressions and literal language are inadequate to describe pain. The former only informs of the presence of bodily pain, while the latter cannot explain purely physical phenomena. Figurative language is thus the alternative to communicate and describe the pain experience. The analysis of texts written by real-life chronic pain sufferers sheds light on the cultural component of metaphors and the conceptual strategies used in the symbolic construction ofthe pain experience.

Keywords

• chronic pain
• figurative
• language
• art
• body