‘You get the nicotine and that in your blood’—constructions of addiction and control in women's accounts of cigarette smoking
✍ Scribed by VAL GILLIES; CARLA WILLIG
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 189 KB
- Volume
- 7
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1052-9284
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✦ Synopsis
In this study discourse analysis was used in order to gain a greater understanding of the multiple meanings that women smokers attach to cigarette smoking. The discursive constructions used by women to explain and justify their smoking behaviour were identified by analysing the transcripts of four semi-structured interviews. All respondents framed their accounts of cigarette smoking within a discourse of addiction, reflecting the prevalence of this construction within the disciplines of medicine, psychology and health promotion. The deterministic and disempowering implications of this discourse are discussed in relation to the subsequent identification of constructions of control and self-regulation which were utilized by most of the respondents. This article also discusses the significance and implications of these discursive constructions to health promotion efforts.