Abstract
Despite advancements in health narrative research, questions remain in how different types of social psychological processes interact with and contribute to the storytelling of people’s lived and living experiences in healthcare contexts. Digital narratives, specifically online consumer book reviews, have emerged as valuable yet underexplored data sources. This paper presents a mixed-method study that examines social psychological processes through linguistic cues found in consumer reviews of the medical memoir, Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery (Marsh, 2014), on Amazon.co.uk.
The study compiles a corpus of over 1500 UK-based reviews and employs a two-step analysis. First, a computer-assisted text analytical approach, utilising the LIWC API (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) and the Sketch Engine (a corpus analytical tool), identifies and illustrates linguistic cues and patterns associated with cognitive, affective, social, and perceptual processes in the narrative data. Subsequently, a qualitative narrative analysis, guided by an analytical concept of narrative modulations (Huang 2020), examines the role of these processes in shaping storylines and storytelling related to health, illness, and healthcare topics within the user reviews. The findings shed light on how small stories, as manifested in online reviews, serve as counter-narratives to canonical narratives in UK healthcare contexts. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these insights in relation to the conference theme of fostering openness and inclusivity in language use in the digital age.
The study compiles a corpus of over 1500 UK-based reviews and employs a two-step analysis. First, a computer-assisted text analytical approach, utilising the LIWC API (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) and the Sketch Engine (a corpus analytical tool), identifies and illustrates linguistic cues and patterns associated with cognitive, affective, social, and perceptual processes in the narrative data. Subsequently, a qualitative narrative analysis, guided by an analytical concept of narrative modulations (Huang 2020), examines the role of these processes in shaping storylines and storytelling related to health, illness, and healthcare topics within the user reviews. The findings shed light on how small stories, as manifested in online reviews, serve as counter-narratives to canonical narratives in UK healthcare contexts. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these insights in relation to the conference theme of fostering openness and inclusivity in language use in the digital age.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | British Association for Applied Linguistics 56th Annual Conference (BAAL 2023) |
| Subtitle of host publication | Book of abstracts |
| Place of Publication | Oxford |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Number of pages | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 23 Aug 2023 |
| Event | BAAL 2023 Conference: Opening Up Applied Linguistics - The University of York, York, United Kingdom Duration: 23 Aug 2023 → 25 Aug 2023 https://aila.info/baal-2023-conference-23-25-august-2023/ |
Conference
| Conference | BAAL 2023 Conference |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
| City | York |
| Period | 23/08/23 → 25/08/23 |
| Internet address |
Keywords
- social psychological processes
- narrative modulations
- digital narratives
- health narratives
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