A Corpus-Based Discourse Analysis of Representations of People with Schizophrenia in the British Press Between 2000

A corpus-based discourse analysis of representations of people with schizophrenia in the British press between 2000 and 2015 James Balfour This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2020 Linguistics and English Language Declaration This thesis has not been submitted in support of an application for another degree at this or any other university. It is the result of my own work and includes nothing that is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated. Many of the ideas in this thesis were the product of discussion with my supervisor Paul Baker. Excerpts of this thesis have been published in the following conference manuscripts and academic publications: Balfour, J. (2019). ‘The mythological marauding violent schizophrenic’: Using the word sketch tool to examine representations of schizophrenic people as violent in the British press. Journal of Corpora and Discourse Studies, 2, 40-64 doi: http://doi.org/10.18573/jcads.10 Lancaster University, UK A corpus-based discourse analysis of representations of people with schizophrenia in the UK press between 2000 and 2015 - James Balfour – October 2019 Abstract Roughly one in a hundred people experience symptoms of schizophrenia during their lifetime, symptoms which include experiencing delusions and hallucinations, such as hearing voices (Johnstone and Frith, 2004). The frequency and intensity of symptoms is exacerbated by widespread negative attitudes and increases the likelihood that an individual will comply with command hallucinations (Harrison and Gill, 2010; Goldstone et al., 2012). In spite of this, the mass media continues to represent people with schizophrenia in an inaccurate and stereotypical way (Clement and Foster, 2008; Chopra and Doody, 2007). This fosters widespread misunderstandings and negative assumptions around the disorder. These misunderstandings gain traction because schizophrenia is widely misunderstood by the public at large (Jensen et al., 2016), and because people are unlikely to have first-hand experiences with people with schizophrenia. Despite the harmful nature of media representations, no study to date has seriously considered how misconceptions of schizophrenia and people with schizophrenia are mediated linguistically in the media. This is curious given that scholars in fields outside of Linguistics are increasingly recognising that the manner in which mental illness is represented plays an important role in reproducing stereotypical and prejudiced attitudes (Goulden et al., 2011, Kalucy et al., 2011). With these considerations in mind, this thesis draws on theories and methods from the field of Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) to examine representations of people with schizophrenia in articles published in the British press between 2000 and 2015. This thesis uses a combination of corpus toolkits (Wordswmith 5.0, Sketch Engine) to examine repetitive lexicogrammatical patterns in articles published in the press that refer to schizophrenia and people with schizophrenia. It takes a particular interest in ‘non-obvious meaning’ (Partington, 2012:11), meanings that are only visible when examining how lexicogrammatical patterns converge around broader semantic and evaluative structures in large repositories of text. Do these patterns, working cumulatively over hundreds and thousands of texts suggest certain ways of understanding or viewing schizophrenia that would not be discernible to the naked eye? The root of the problem revealed in the analysis was a tension between reporting schizophrenia accurately and the press’ interest in reporting on schizophrenia in a way that is newsworthy in accordance with news values (Galtung and Ruge, 1965; Jewkes, 2015). In particular, there was a tendency to report on exceptional cases of people with schizophrenia (e.g. worst cases where people experience florid symptoms, people with schizophrenia who have succeeded creatively) that do not represent the majority of people diagnosed with the disorder. In the same vein, there was also a tendency for the press to repackage hard news as entertainment, for instance, by interdiscursively drawing on language and tropes associated with horror fiction. Salient language patterns converged around two main discourses: (1) that people with schizophrenia pose a risk to others, and (2) that people with schizophrenia who kill are intentional immoral agents. The analysis also identified a problematic metaphorical usage, which potentially reproduced the widespread misassumption that schizophrenia refers to a ‘split- personality disorder’ (e.g. Jensen et al., 2015). I conclude by supporting a suggestion made in the academic literature (e.g. Ellison et al., 2018) that the diagnostic term ‘schizophrenia’ should be relabelled so that individuals diagnosed with the disorder do not carry the additional burden of negative stereotypes and misassumptions associated with the label. Chapter 1: Introduction Acknowledgements First, I’d like to thank my supervisor, Professor Paul Baker for his support throughout my PhD. For providing a combination of useful guidance but also allowing me the freedom to develop my own voice and perspective as a linguist. Paul also helped me realise the importance of not just descriptive research, but critical research, and that the most important research is that which tries to change people’s lives for the better. Second, I’d like to thank the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Lancaster University for providing the funding that allowed me to carry out this PhD research. Third, I’d like to thank my friends for their moral support and for providing me with the perfect environment in which to ponder, discuss and write my doctoral thesis. In particular, I’d like to thank my housemates throughout the PhD, Charlotte Owen and Miguel Sousa. Charlotte, for providing a wealth of moral support throughout the PhD process and for being a voice of reason during difficult times, and Miguel, who it was possible to have an intelligent discussion with almost about anything. I’d also like to thank my friend Johnathan Inkley, who was an intelligent voice and ear throughout my university studies, who I shared many an evening chat with about critical theory. My interest in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and my familiarity with a range of critical theorists came from those discussions. I’d also like to thank Emma Franklin, a fellow PhD student, for her support throughout, especially for introducing me to the work of Professor Patrick Hanks, and being a sympathetic ear when discussing the trials and tribulations of doing a PhD. Emma James Balfour - May 2020 5 A corpus-based discourse analysis of representations of people with schizophrenia in the UK press showed me that doubting yourself and your research methods is a normal part of the PhD journey. And I’d like to thank each of the Bowland Bar crowd for many a sobering discussion on a range of topics at many an unsober hour. Fourth, I’d like to thank my family, namely my mother, Hazel, and my sister, Justine, particularly for their moral support and guidance during the last few (and most difficult) months of the process. Other mentions include Katy Myers, for providing me with some literature on schizophrenia at the beginning of the PhD, and Emily Hodson, for some references on social psychology. References from both made it into the final thesis. Last, I’d like to thank everyone in CASS and the Department of Linguistics and English Language for their encouragement and feedback throughout, particularly my examiners during my pre-viva panels. I’d particularly like to thank Veronika Koller, for allowing me the privilege of teaching on the Discourse Analysis course at Lancaster whilst studying for my PhD. These sessions not only helped me develop my communication skills as an academic but also helped me put gather my thoughts, at an early stage, on the relationship between language and society. 6 James Balfour - May 2020 Chapter 1: Introduction TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 18 1.1. Preamble 18 1.2. Schizophrenia: a brief historical overview 20 1.3. Motivations 25 1.4. Originality of contribution 31 1.5. Research questions 34 1.6. Structure of the thesis 36 2. Literature Review 38 2.1. Critical Discourse Studies 38 2.1.1. Working definitions of discourse (non-count noun), discourses (count noun) and representation 39 2.1.2. Critical research 46 2.1.3. Interdisciplinarity 50 2.2. The British press and its language 63 2.2.1. News values 64 2.2.2. Discursive strategies: sensationalism and conversationalisation 71 2.2.3. Tabloidization: a ‘disappearing frontier’? 72 2.2.4. Media regulation 76 2.2.5. Journalistic practice and professional ethos 78 2.3. Stigma and self-stigma 81 2.4. Relevant academic literature 85 2.4.1. CADS approaches to news discourse 85 James Balfour - May 2020 7 A corpus-based discourse analysis of representations of people with schizophrenia in the UK press 2.4.2. CADS approaches to the representation of identities in news discourse 86 2.4.3. CADS approaches to health discourse 88 2.4.4. CADS approaches to health-related identities 89 2.4.5. Non-CADS studies examining representations of mental illness in the media 92 3. Data and method 97 3.1. Introduction 97 3.2. Data collection 98 3.2.1. Sampling frame 98 3.2.2. Duplicated articles 105 3.2.3. Cleaning procedure 108 3.2.4. Structuring the corpus 111 3.2.5. Reference corpus 113 3.3. Corpus tools 114 3.4. Analytic framework 119 4. Using the word sketch tool to examine lexicogrammatical patterns around schizophrenia, schizophrenic (adj.) and SCHIZOPHRENIC (n.) 124 4.1. Introduction 124 4.2. The most frequent schiz words 125 4.3. Word sketch for schizophrenia (n.) 129 4.4. Word Sketch for schizophrenic (adj.) 150 4.5. Word sketch for SCHIZOPHRENIC (n.) 181 5. Distinctive lexis in the tabloids and broadsheets 217 5.2. Stylistic differences 226 8 James Balfour - May 2020 Chapter 1: Introduction 5.3.

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