Clause complex manifestation in depression
-
Revital Nagar
Revital Nagar , PhD, is Lecturer in the English Foreign Language Department at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Her current interests include reading disabilities and the language of psychiatric disorders. Address for correspondence: English Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel 〈revital.nagar@gmail.com 〉.
and
Jonathan Fine
Jonathan Fine received his PhD in linguistics from Cornell University. He is Professor of English at Bar-Ilan University. He does research on the language of psychiatric disorders including particularly psychosis and the autistic spectrum. His bookLanguage in Psychiatry: A Handbook for Clinical Practice was published in 2006 (London: Equinox). Address for correspondence: English Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel 〈jonathan.fine@biu.ac.il 〉.
Abstract
In this paper we investigate whether the semantic development of text in free discursive writing distinguishes currently depressed, formerly depressed, and never depressed writers. Theoretically motivated linguistic categories of elaboration (restating, exemplifying), extension (adding, contrasting), and enhancement (qualifying with specific details) were used to code the semantic transitions in essays of 25 currently depressed, 24 formerly depressed, and 28 never depressed individuals diagnosed by Beck Depression Inventory (BDI, current symptoms of depression) and the Inventory to Diagnose Depression (IDD-L, lifetime depression). The currently depressed used more elaboration and extension and less enhancement. The severity of both current and lifetime depression is correlated positively with elaboration and extension and negatively with enhancement. The difficulty in concentrating and the self-focus in depression are associated with more elaborations, more extensions, and fewer enhancements. Writers with depression add less “color” that enriches their texts with details. Both mood state and cognitive processing are tracked in written language.
About the authors
Revital Nagar, PhD, is Lecturer in the English Foreign Language Department at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Her current interests include reading disabilities and the language of psychiatric disorders. Address for correspondence: English Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel 〈revital.nagar@gmail.com〉.
Jonathan Fine received his PhD in linguistics from Cornell University. He is Professor of English at Bar-Ilan University. He does research on the language of psychiatric disorders including particularly psychosis and the autistic spectrum. His book Language in Psychiatry: A Handbook for Clinical Practice was published in 2006 (London: Equinox). Address for correspondence: English Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel 〈jonathan.fine@biu.ac.il〉.
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Editorial: The Halliday potential
- Introduction
- Applying systemic functional linguistics in healthcare contexts
- Users in uses of language: embodied identity in Youth Justice Conferencing
- Using systemic functional linguistics to explore digital technologies in educational contexts
- What do texts do? The context-construing work of news
- Evaluating experience in funny ways: how friends bond through conversational hum
- Interlingual re-instantiation – a new systemic functional perspective on translation
- Clause complex manifestation in depression
- Systemic functional linguistics, corpus linguistics, and the ideology of science
- Hallidayan systemic-functional semiotics and the analysis of the moving audiovisual image
- Multimodal digital semiotics: the interaction of language with other resources
- Visualizing patterns of appraisal in texts and corpora
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Editorial: The Halliday potential
- Introduction
- Applying systemic functional linguistics in healthcare contexts
- Users in uses of language: embodied identity in Youth Justice Conferencing
- Using systemic functional linguistics to explore digital technologies in educational contexts
- What do texts do? The context-construing work of news
- Evaluating experience in funny ways: how friends bond through conversational hum
- Interlingual re-instantiation – a new systemic functional perspective on translation
- Clause complex manifestation in depression
- Systemic functional linguistics, corpus linguistics, and the ideology of science
- Hallidayan systemic-functional semiotics and the analysis of the moving audiovisual image
- Multimodal digital semiotics: the interaction of language with other resources
- Visualizing patterns of appraisal in texts and corpora
