Communicative Elements and Linguistic Strategies for Commenting on Depression Pages: A Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics Approach

Abstract

Major depressive disorder is a disease affecting the mind and work of many
people in Thai society, nowadays. This research article aimed to analyze communicative components and linguistic strategies for commenting on depression pages. Data were collected from “Letter from Depression Page” and “Beloved Depression Page (Suemsaoteerak Page)” from November 1, 2019 - May 30, 2020. The analysis results revealed that in terms of the communicative elements about depression, a facebook page is a new medium, called “facebook discourse”, and it is the space for a group of people with the same objective used to express their opinions and attitudes. A tone of understanding and concern, affecting the norms of interactions and interpretations was used to convey stories and encourage patients with major depressive disorder. Thirteen linguistic strategies, namely expressing the feelings and needs of commenters, giving encouragement, comparing, agreeing with posts, giving reasons, disagreeing, complaining, mentioning the events or experiences of the commenters, asking for advice, giving advice, asking for sympathy, rhetorical
questions and reprimanding were used. These linguistic strategies reflected the
thinking of people with depression and also showed empathy as friends or consultants of the communication event participants with and without major depressive disorder. Therefore, the depression pages on Facebook are not only responsible for creating understanding between patients and communication event participants, but also creating understanding for the people in society because remedial treatment of patients with major depressive disorder requires cooperation among health workers, patients, family and society.