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These past decades have seen an emergence of studies on speech acts. Condolences, however, are among the least addressed out of them. Bibliography on this subject is scarce if compared to that of petitions, promises, offers, and so on, more so in Spanish, where papers on this subject are few and far between. This gap is especially notable in diachronic studies. This paper aims to offer a first approach to strategies for delivering condolences in 18th and 19th century letters written in the Canary Islands, Spain. Its goal is to describe which are the most common semantic formulas used to give condolences, and how much they resemble those described by different authors regarding this speech act in modern languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author argues article written by author Beth Brant which pursues stems from counterintution, an mentions overdued credits by Brant as custodian of political tradition in writing practice. Topics discussed include talk of Brant enacted through reference to nature of living and dying, variation of Brant on items of Condolence, and expression of concern for communities of women by Brant weaving through her poetry and fiction.

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The present study tried to address questions related to USA Pakistan being allied at different national and international fora but Pakistan being the victimised/suffering friend and USA being a powerful/dictating ally only. The quarries addressed were: If the members of victimized group expect mere acknowledgements of their suffering from their ally groups, or they are in need of action expressions or passive sorrows. This exploration was followed by which expressions offer higher hope, and satisfaction to the suffering group. The paper capitalized on experimental design using the condolence offered by the U.S. after the Peshawar School Massacre. Across conditions, recruiting between subjects design with 209 university students in Islamabad, experimental manipulation included: sorry-expressions (feel sorry), action expressions (actionexpressions: feel outraged/feel responsible), and sorrow expressions (sorrow-expressions: feel guilty/feel regret). Results suggest that statements with mere sorry expressions fall short of conveying much hope for change and pain shared by the ally; participants reported more satisfaction in response to action-expressions (outrage-responsibility) than in response to sorrow-expressions (guilt-regret). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Family members of patients who die in the ICU often remain with unanswered questions and suffer from lack of closure. A letter of condolence may help bereaved relatives, but little is known about their experience of receiving such a letter. The objective of the study was to understand bereaved family members' experience of receiving a letter of condolence.Design: Qualitative study using interviews with bereaved family members who received a letter of condolence and letters written by these family members to the ICU team. This study was designed to provide insight into the results of a larger randomized, controlled, multicenter study.Setting: Twenty-two ICUs in France.Subjects: Family members who lost a loved one in the ICU and who received a letter of condolence.Measurements and Main Results: Thematic analysis was used and was based on 52 interviews and 26 letters. Six themes emerged: 1) a feeling of support, 2) humanization of the medical system, 3) an opportunity for reflection, 4) an opportunity to describe their loved one, 5) continuity and closure, and 6) doubts and ambivalence. Possible difficulties emerged, notably the re-experience of the trauma, highlighting the absence of further support.Conclusions: This study describes the benefits of receiving a letter of condolence; mainly, it humanizes the medical institution (feeling of support, confirmation of the role played by the relative, supplemental information). However, this study also shows a common ambivalence about the letter of condolence's benefit. Healthcare workers must strive to adapt bereavement follow-up to each individual situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are all just passing through is what you told me, my dear Professor, at my father's funeral, instead of the usual expressions of condolences. And, as it usually happens in moments of the greatest grief, when the body is consumed by sorrow, the mind is completely 'pure' and rational, so here, I remember your words even a quarter of a century later, as if you had spoken them yesterday. Just passing through? You were right, Professor, but not all of us pass through life in the same way. Some, like in that popular saying, pass through life like a dog when it gets soaked in the rain - it shakes it off, the raindrops spraying off in every direction, and it is dry again - while others pass through life in such a way that afterward nothing is the same. Well, Professor Dević, you belonged to the latter type of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Purpose: Family members of patients who die in the intensive care unit (ICU) may experience symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and/or prolonged grief. We evaluated whether grief symptoms were alleviated if the physician and the nurse in charge at the time of death sent the closest relative a handwritten condolence letter.Methods: Multicenter randomized trial conducted among 242 relatives of patients who died at 22 ICUs in France between December 2014 and October 2015. Relatives were randomly assigned to receiving (n = 123) or not receiving (n = 119) a condolence letter. The primary endpoint was the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Score (HADS) at 1 month. Secondary endpoints included HADS, complicated grief (ICG), and PTSD-related symptoms (IES-R) at 6 months. Observers were blinded to group allocation.Results: At 1 month, 208 (85.9%) relatives completed the HADS; median score was 16 [IQR, 10-22] with and 14 [8-21.5] without the letter (P = 0.36). Although scores were higher in the intervention group, there were no significant differences regarding the HADS-depression subscale (8 [4-12] vs. 6 [2-12], mean difference 1.1 [-0.5 to 2.6]; P = 0.09) and prevalence of depression symptoms (56.0 vs. 42.4%, RR 0.76 [0.57-1.00]; P = 0.05). At 6 months, 190 (78.5%) relatives were interviewed. The intervention significantly increased the HADS (13 [7-19] vs. 10 [4-17.5], P = 0.04), HADS-depression subscale (6 [2-10] vs. 3 [1-9], P = 0.02), prevalence of depression symptoms (36.6 vs. 24.7%, P = 0.05) and PTSD-related symptoms (52.4 vs. 37.1%, P = 0.03).Conclusions: In relatives of patients who died in the ICU, a condolence letter failed to alleviate grief symptoms and may have worsened depression and PTSD-related symptoms. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT02325297. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Following a patient's death, some doctors routinely write a letter of condolence to the bereaved family. Practice appears to vary widely but this is poorly documented, particularly in the UK setting. We wished to explore the attitudes of oncologists and palliative care consultants towards writing letters of condolence to patient's families. Methods: A sample of oncology and palliative care consultants from across Yorkshire were invited via email to complete an anonymous online survey. The survey aimed to identify current practice regarding condolence letter writing and respondents attitudes towards this. Results: A total of 47 (72%) recipients completed the survey, comprised of clinical oncologists (45%), medical oncologists (42%), and palliative care consultants (13%). The majority (87%) reported sending condolence letters, but amongst this group, only 49% indicated they do this 'often' or 'always'. When asked whether they would use a standard template letter, should it be made available, 77% of participants responded negatively. Many later commented that a template with room for flexibility would be better received. The majority (72%) were also not in favour of the introduction of policies to try to unify practices. Conclusions: Practices and attitudes towards condolence letter writing are variable. The participants in this study felt strongly about when and how they wished to express condolences. A single unifying policy seems unlikely to be appropriate or feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As intensive care mortality is high, end of life is a subject of major concern for intensivists. In this context, relatives are particularly vulnerable and prone to post-ICU syndrome, in the form of high levels of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and complicated grief. Grieving families suffer from a feeling of abandonment and evoke the need to get back in touch with the team to ask questions and remove doubts, but very few actually do. Aiding families during the grieving process is an important aspect of palliative care. A condolence letter represents an opportunity to recognize the pain of the family member and the strong tie that linked the family member to the ICU team, and to offer additional information if necessary. The goal of the study is to measure the impact of the condolence letter on the experience of bereaved families after a death in the ICU. Our hypothesis is that a post-death follow-up in the form of a condolence letter sent by the ICU physician who was in charge of the patient may help to reduce the risks of presenting symptoms of anxiety/depression, post-traumatic stress, and complicated grief.Methods/design: This is a randomized, controlled, multicenter study. Research will compare two groups of bereaved family members: one group that does not receive a condolence letter (control) and one group that receives a condolence letter 15 days after the death (intervention). Each of the 22 participating centers will include 12 relatives. Participating relatives will be followed up by phone with a call at 1 month and one at 6 months to complete questionnaires, permitting evaluation of post-ICU burden. The main outcome is anxiety and depression measured at 1 month. Other outcomes include evaluation of quality of dying and death, post-traumatic stress, and complicated grief.Discussion: This study will allow us to assess if sending a condolence letter can reduce the risks of presenting symptoms of anxiety and depression, complicated grief, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder after the death of a loved one in the ICU.Trial Registration: Clinical Trials Registration Number: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT02325297 (23 December 2014). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article proposes that letters of condolence sent to writer Evelyn Waugh's widow, Laura, are a rich source in filling out a life under consideration. Topics covered include the practice of grieving online and sending condolences via e-mail, the letters received which point to relationships and exchanges with him which were warm and memorable and the various forms of the rhetoric of bereavement.

The article presents a letter of condolence which Law Professor Arthur Linton Corbin sent to fellow Professor and Dean Soia Mentschikoff upon the death of Mentschikoff's husband legal scholar Karl N. Llewellyn's death in 1962, and it also provides biographical information about Corbin, Mentschikoff, and Llewellyn. Several of Corbin's law review articles are mentioned, along with his role as a faculty member at Yale Law School. Llewellyn's tenure as a student at Yale Law School is also examined.

Unlike other speech acts such as refusals, apologies, requests and advices, the speech act of giving condolences has not yet been explored adequately. This study intends to investigate the speech act of condolences in Jordanian Arabic that are conveyed via a social network site, i.e. Facebook. The data focused on the condolences made as a response to an obituary status update on a deceased contemporary Jordanian actor in 2011. Based on 678 posted comments, the researchers were able to identify seven major strategies in the commentary; which were: praying for God's mercy and forgiveness for the deceased, reciting Quranic verses, enumerating the virtues of the deceased, expressing shock and grief, offering condolences, realizing death is a natural part of life; and using proverbs and sayings. To ensure consistency in the comments, the data was first analysed by the researchers of the present study before three independent raters were invited to analyse the same data sample (condolences). The raters' analysis in the commentary reflect the seven major strategies identified by the researchers. The results revealed that the strategies were attributed to the respondents' religious orientation (i.e. Islam). Moreover, the findings also indicate that the majority of condolences in Jordanian comments are affiliated to faith and religious beliefs. The results obtained provide useful information to cross-cultural comparison studies and other related studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to a document kept in the Russian Red Archives, 28 officers of the Ottoman Black Sea Fleet sent a letter of condolence and support to the parents of Lieutenant Schmidt who was executed in 1906 for rioting in Odesa and in the fleet. The subject document has been used in literature for many years without question. However, contextual, formatting, and logical errors and inconsistencies in the content of the above-mentioned document are remarkable. Besides this, when conditions and documents of the period are examined, it seems probable that the document was fabricated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article focuses on the condolence letters for ophthalmologist Jacobus "Chick" tenBroek, founder of the National Federation of the Blind who died on March 27, 1968. It says that a letter by his colleague Everett Wilcox of California School for the Blind shows tenBroek's unconventionality. Moreover, in another letter, one of his students explains how he "experienced" tenBroek without being merely encountering him. The article also mentions the letters from his friends and fellow blind people.

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The article discusses the impact of the Chinese Qing diplomatic mission to Seoul, Korea to deliver a letter of condolence for the death of Korean Chosŏn dowager Empress Cho in 1890. The Chinese diplomatic visit and subsequent obsequience of the greeting by the Korean delegation were a matter of diplomacy and foreign relations between the countries and helped reinforce China's position of authority and previous claims to Korea. Other subjects considered include Western views of the visit, historiography regarding the incident, and tributary relations between nations.

This study examines online obituary pages at nine major U.S. daily newspapers seeking to understand how these sites use new technologies, and how they publicly portray people's lives and deaths. These mainstream dailies provide a forum, and potentially large audiences, for mourners who send messages to the dead, express emotion, and tell stories. They also facilitate connections between readers and build new kinds of virtual communities. This represents a departure from traditional obituary content. Indeed, the "cyber obit" now allows the bereaved to help frame the death stories and build the memorials, liberated from the linear, non-interactive formats of the past. This study builds on work of bereavement scholars as well as literature in journalism and mass communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the Israeli leadership's attempts to explain and justify the harsh outcomes of deployment of force on behalf of the state. It analyzes Commemoration Day Letters sent by representatives of the State of Israel to the families of soldiers killed in action from 1952 onwards, focusing on significant changes in the relation between the individual and the collective. The major turning point is expressed in Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's letters from the mid-1980s, in which the sanctity of life appears as an ideal guiding the state's political establishment. Applying Roman Jakobson's model of communication, the article claims that this turning point marks a shift from a collective, story-oriented approach in which the national narrative was offered as consolation for the loss to a communication-oriented approach, in which those undersigning the letters are presented as personal communicators rather than national narrators. Against the background of problems of legitimacy embedded in this approach, the article analyzes how recent letters refrain from taking either an individualistic or a collective standpoint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I argue that Plutarch's consolation letter to his wife is not merely an act of public posturing but a moving personal document, a public statement on correct grieving, and a demonstration of the syncretistic trend in philosophy in early Imperial times. The letter can be connected to a tradition of ancient consolatory activities which established an ancient form of psychotherapy. Here I draw particular attention to the syncretistic aspect of philosophical stances. The case study provides a new and richer interpretation of this remarkable document, opening up further avenues for the study of the ancient consolation genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's view of war as seen through the stories told by a Vietnam War veteran who was the father of a college roommate. It relates memories of the author's encounters with the veteran during Homecoming events at college and talks about the author's fascination with condolence cards for families of military dead.

The article offers guidelines for physicians about how to say goodbye to a patient who is in the last phase of life. While other physicians have described how to talk about dying and what to do after a patient dies, such as write a condolence letter, go to the funeral, or grieve privately, authors know of no medical literature that describes how a physician can say goodbye to a patient who will probably never make another visit to the clinic or hospital. A physician's goodbye could have a number of positive effects. By saying goodbye, a physician can acknowledge the end of the relationship and at the same time underscore its importance, leaving the patient with a sense of feeling valued and cared for rather than abandoned.