DOI:10.30842/alp23065737192246283
Rudneva Ye. A. Diskurs o psikhicheskikh
rasstroystvakh (na primere obsuzhdeniy BAR i depressii na russkom
yazyke). Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. 246–283.
The boundary between the normal and the abnormal or between
illness and healthiness runs along socio-cultural rather than
medical lines. The article aims to reveal the modern trends, the
linguistic means and discursive strategies applied in Russian to
conceptualize mental problems, in particular those of bipolar
disorder and depression. The analysis is based on a variety of
publications and discussions gleaned from the Internet, corpus data
(used as a source on the relevant terms and their history), and
interviews. The main tendencies in the everyday discourse include
medicalization of certain states and moods described as mental
disorders, with corresponding assessment of their seriousness, and
normalization of mental problems where it has come to be acceptable
or even prestigious to publicly reveal one’s diagnosis (mental
disorder trendiness discourse). The concept of bipolar disorder has
practically lost its connection with the old variant —
manic-depressive syndrome, and the new lexical items
(bipolyarka, bipolyarochka, bipolyarnik,
bipolyarschik) are often associated with cultural
phenomena perceived rather positively; the abbreviation
BAR (Russian for BAD) proves to be the safest option for
most contexts. The article proposes to distinguish a new meaning of
depressiya ‘depression’ (not registered yet in
dictionaries) — ‘moping, collapse of strength’, with widespread
disputes currently underway regarding the competition between the
two meanings. In the discourse, depression is not associated with
socially disapproved behavior; there is less representation of
activism in contrast to bipolar disorder. Analysis demonstrates
that a person can be represented as mentally ill through various
strategies: on the one hand, by referring to the fact that he has
been diagnosed, taken specific medication or undergone treatment at
a hospital; on the other hand, mental illness can be described as a
violation of social norms, including those concerning
communication. Discursive strategies of people who have not
experienced mental disorder differ from those who have. When
discussing mental illness, the latter often find no neutral
language for it, resorting to prosodic means or using various
sounds / gestures meant to reflect their emotions and serve as a
means of referencing.
Keywords
mental health discourse, critical discourse
analysis, bipolar disorder, depression, interviews, political
correctness
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