Metaphors of suffering, illness, and death in the digital edition of the Apostolate of the Sick journal

Abstract

The sick can conceptualize their suffering individually and in a community by subordinating themselves to the rules of the discourse that regulates thinking and behavior. Conceptualization can, therefore, be the result of choice, adopting a particular perspective, and filtering experience through categories that make up a specific ideological or axiological system. It is not only the result of somatic, cultural, or subcultural determination. Research conducted worldwide has already shown that conceptual metaphors help individual patients cope with suffering, mobilize them to fight, and even give them hope. Research on religious communities online has already mapped the community-forming potential of groups of the sick. However, so far, the two trends have not met. The authors of this article try to fill these gaps in the literature by using an intuitive analysis of metaphors as part of the discourse analysis of the digital edition of the Polish monthly Apostolstwo Chorych [Apostolate of the Sick] in 2019-2022. The results of the analysis allow us to understand the community that creates the monthly magazine in its ideological and axiological dimensions. Moreover, the results help capture the connections between the conceptual processes of metaphorizing suffering and the community experience. The conducted research constitutes a contribution to further research on religious communities online, as well as on the metaphors, axiology, and pragmatics of discourses about illness, suffering, and death.