Elective Cesarean Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

In Brazil the vast majority of primiparous women, on discovering that they are pregnant, hope to have normal deliveries. However, in over half of such cases surgical deliveries ensue. This mismatch between what pregnant women desire and what they actually experience is not exclusive to Brazil, but takes place in several Western countries. Through Corpus Linguistics (CL)-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of vaginal birth after c-section (VBAC) stories we seek to shed light on the social problem of a mismatch between the desired experience and the actual experience. VBAC stories seemed to us the ideal discourse for revealing elements of this mismatch, since they address both the experience of an unwanted (and usually wrongly indicated) prior C-section and that of the desired, and achieved, delivery. The theoretical-methodological approach we have adopted brings together CDA (Fairclough, 1989, 1992; Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Fairclough, 2003); CL (Stubbs, 1993, McEnery & Wilson, 1997 e 2003, Tognini-Bonelli, 2001), and Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (Baker et al 2008; Baker, 2013; Baker & McEnery, 2005; Flowerdew, 2014). An electronic corpus was compiled in English and Portuguese for this study. The corpus is made up of texts written by women who have experienced VBAC and includes no mediated texts (i.e. interviews and third-party reports). The BRABA Corpus (Corpus of the birth stories of Brazilian, American, British and Australian women) encompasses four subcorpora respectively: Corpus BRA (93 stories, 250,807 words), Corpus USA (101 stories, 225,736 words), Corpus UK (97 stories, 92,197 words), and Corpus AU (92 stories, 200,639 words. The first two of these subcorporaCorpus BRA and Corpus USAwere chosen for this study, which investigates how identities and birth experiences are represented in the accounts of Brazilian and American women, and thus through this investigation uncovers elements that will shed light on the selected social problem. The computer processing used AntConc 3.4.0w (Anthony, 2012) and CL tools (frequency lists, keyword lists, concordance lines, etc.). Analysis was guided by keywords corresponding to the people mentioned in the stories and by the most statistically significant collocates of these keywords. From Corpus BRA the words were: eu (collocates: desisto, renasci, mamava); bebê (encaixado, morrer/morresse, sexo, batimentos, alto); marido (companheiro, apoiou, cortou); doula (amada, obstetriz, querida, presença); médico (fofa/fofinha, mudar/mudei, cesarista, ginecologista, humanizada); anestesista; enfermeira (obstétrica/obstetra, cadê, soro, chamar); parteira (liguei/ligar, doula, casa); obstetriz (doula, toque). From Corpus USA: I (wish, protested, lamented); baby (pound, girl, boy); midwife (certified, asst/assistant, student, assist); doula (hired, friend, called); nurse (practitioner, tells, triage); doctor (office, seen, comes); anesthesiologist; husband (poor, run, children). Analysis enabled this social problem to be laid bare in both societies, revealing discourse and cultural similarities and differences. The mismatch between the desired and the experienced outcomes is represented as having been caused by a succession of discrete events. In both corpora, experiences are represented, and self-identity and other identities are notably constructed in discourse under the aegis of features of modernity, above all, under reflexivity, which, in the discourses of VBAC stories takes place through empowerment, understood as self-actualization through newly gathered knowledge and ensuing courses of action/measures (Giddens, 2002).