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Corpus Linguistics and Clinical Psychology: Investigating 'personification' in first-person accounts of voice-hearing

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>31/01/2023
<mark>Journal</mark>International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Issue number1
Volume28
Number of pages31
Pages (from-to)28-59
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date29/04/22
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Triangulating corpus linguistic approaches with other (linguistic and non-linguistic) approaches enhances "both the rigour of corpus linguistics and its incorporation into all kinds of research" (McEnery & Hardie, 2012: 227). Our study investigates an important area of mental health research: the experiences of those who hear voices that others cannot hear, and particularly the ways in which those voices are described as person-like. We apply corpus methods to augment the findings of a qualitative approach to 40 interviews with voice-hearers, whereby each interview was coded as involving ‘minimal’ or ‘complex’ personification of voices. Our analysis provides linguistic evidence in support of the qualitative coding of the interviews, but also goes beyond a binary approach by revealing different types and degrees of personification of voices, based on how they are referred to and described by voice-hearers. We relate these findings to concepts that inform therapeutic interventions in clinical psychology.