Author(s)

Ziqian Wang ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ School of Foreign Study, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, 100029, China

Corresponding Author

Ziqian Wang

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an analysis of a special category of writing--therapeutic writing and use novel The Sorrow of War as an example for deeper study. Comparing with traditional writing, this essay gave the definition of therapeutic writing. Combined with the 4 elements of literary mentioned by M. H. Abrams (1954), main elements of therapeutic writing are given in. These elements are: the therapy (the work), the therapist (the artist), the pathogenesis (the universe), the patient (the audience = the artist). With the adoption of discourse analysis, specific language features of therapeutic writing are induced. In this part, a certain book The Sorrow of War is taken as an example and its general features are shown: stream of consciousness style, fragmented and none-liner narrative, repetition, diary-like. Then through more detailed language observation, the essay illustrates how application and performance of the language people use are related to their mental well-being. It is suggested that these findings could be a start of the study in a new kind of writing different from traditional writing like fiction or biography, which may expand the study area from neuroscience and psychology to linguistic aspect. Besides, this paper provides a method for people to alleviate their pain and trauma which is of the practical value nowadays.

KEYWORDS

Therapeutic writing, discourse analysis, stream of consciousness style

CITE THIS PAPER

Ziqian Wang, Analysis of Transformative Effects of Language Used in Therapeutic Writing. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2023) Vol. 6: 69-76. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2023.061412.

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