"Suicide, Reconstruction of Meaningful Order and Vocabularies of Motive"
FUJIWARA Nobuyuki
last update: 20151224
Suicide, Reconstruction of Meaningful Order and Vocabularies of Motive
FUJIWARA Nobuyuki
Abstract:
When a suicide occurs, the meaningful order of the intimate persons of the suicide victim is unsettled.
Therefore, the intimate persons have to reconstruct their meaningful order by using vocabularies of motive.
This study aims to elucidate which vocabularies the intimate persons of suicide victims choose, focusing on a
suicide case in Iwate Prefecture.
The easiest way of reconstructing a meaningful order after it has been unsettled is to apply dominant
vocabularies of motives. However this way is painful for intimate persons of suicide victims because the
dominant vocabularies of motives tend not only to reveal the causes of the suicide but also to give intimate
persons responsibility for causing the suicide.
In the case in this study, the intimate persons indicated that the suicide victim worried about the decline of
her working ability due to an illness and about giving an economic burden to her household. These are the
dominant vocabularies of motives they did not choose these. The daughter of the suicide victim and the
daughter's friend chose community ties and their regulation as a way of reconstructing their meaningful order,
though they decided that their country was the cause of the suicide. The husband of the suicide victim and her
friend chose no vocabularies of motive: hence they abandoned reconstructing their meaningful order. They
resisted using dominant vocabularies of motive, although their resistance must have been painful.
Keywords: Suicide, Intimate persons of Suicide Victims, Meaningful Order, Vocabularies of Motive
REV: 20151224