The Physical and Emotional Spaces of Perinatal Death and the Words to Talk about it

The suffering of those struck by perinatal loss is exacerbated by the silence that surrounds this unknowingly quite recurrent event (around 15 babies die before, during or soon after birth every day in the UK. In 2017, one in every 238 births was a stillbirth)1, which is widely associated to stigma and taboo in our society (Heazell 2016: 388). Numerous associations in different countries have been trying to support bereaved families and healthcare operators who experience this challenging situation by publishing self-help leaflets, book(let)s, manuals and brochures, in an attempt to: provide information on bereaved parents’ rights and entitlements, whose definitions are often unclear and non-harmonised across even EU countries; disseminate appropriate discursive practices conveying a general attitude of benevolence and compassion towards bereaved families. The aim of this proposal is to: a) provide linguistic products (translations of popularizing genres on perinatal death) disseminating information among the mass public; and b) critically observe the role of translation in raising awareness on a topic usually surrounded by silence in traditional and digital communication. To do so, a corpus of leaflets and book(let)s published by SANDS (Stillbirth And Neonatal Death Charity, www.sands.org.uk2), a UK-based association supporting anyone affected by the death of a baby, has been collected. A high discursive hybridity (Sarangi / Polese / Caliendo 2009; Grego / Vicentini 2009) characterizes these texts, in which the medical and legal discourses are inseparably interconnected: the law, drafted by the lawmaker drawing from medical expertise based on clinical studies, in turn determines medical practices in that it states, for example, how many months correspond to a foetus or a baby, or dictates the norms for the ‘disposal’ of their mortal remains. Our study draws upon the emergent field of sociology of translation within the broader context of translation studies (Pym 2006; Wolf and Fukari 2007; Wolf 2009) and embraces the concept of translation as a form of “intervention Linguistics” (Munday 2008). As Di Mauro (2014: 1) aptly suggests, in the past and more recent history of linguistics, numerous linguists have committed to conduct research aimed at significantly modifying the linguistic conditions of some sectors of society. Academically, the proposed paper intends to provide a critical reflection on specialised texts dealing with ethically, legally and socially relevant issues, the translation of such texts and their disseminating function in society. In practical terms, the translations and the promotion of texts on perinatal death among user groups and end users is expected to provide a possible tangible output with relevance for social actors finding themselves in a situation of vulnerability, as envisaged by Critical Discourse Analysis (Wodak et al. 2009, Flowerdew / Richardson 2018).