Linguistic Oddness in Philippine Suicide Notes: A Forensic Discourse Analysis
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Abstract
The increasing interest that the phenomenon of suicide gained across research disciplines has stimulated diverse research perspectives on how to examine the language of suicide embedded in suicide notes to characterize the consistent and prevalent linguistic structures and attitudes of suicide-attempters and completers. This study aimed to describe and examine the anatomical oddness features and structures of suicide notes written by Filipino suicide-completers. As qualitative research, this study employed forensic discourse analysis as a method of analysis through Shapero's (2011) linguistic oddness framework. This study analyzed 59 genuine suicide notes written in English and Filipino languages. The findings revealed that Filipino note-writers hovered on melodramatic emotions, inconsistencies in logic and naming references, incorrect spellings, the vagueness of details, and repetition of overly stated thoughts or ideas which projected awkwardness, inappropriateness, and oddness in the suicide structure. The study recommends embarking on larger Filipino suicide corpora for a broader scope and interpretation and typify characteristics of suicide notes written in the English language from the suicide notes written in the Filipino language.
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