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ВЕСТНИК ПЕРМСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА
2010 РОССИЙСКАЯ И ЗАРУБЕЖНАЯ ФИЛОЛОГИЯ Вып. 3(9)
УДК 81'23
THE SUICIDAL LINGUISTIC BEHAVIOUR (conclusions based on the multiple-standpoint analysis of the farewell letters written by 152 suicides)
Katalin Kukorelli
Professor of Foreign Languages Department College of Dunaujvaros, Hungary
The present article deals with farewell letters written by 152 suicides in the Hungarian language. The examples are given in translation into English. The author of the article compares structure, grammar and content of these farewell letters with the general rules of letter writing and classifies them basing on the multiple-standpoint analysis.
Key words: suicidal intention, suicide; farewell letter; suicidal communication; linguistic behaviour.
1. Introduction
We have known since Shneidmann (1985) that suicidal intentions have signs. Most part of the suicidal person’s signals are linguistic signals, thus it is reasonable to perform linguistic research on the suicidal communication. The suicidal manner of speaking is a part of the Hungarian language. The manner of speaking of the suicide and non-suicide persons differ in the fact that they prefer different linguistic devices. To understand the linguistic behaviour of the person in crisis, the level of the general knowledge about suicide as a phenomenon must be raised. The signals (either hidden or direct) of the person struggling with difficulties can be primarily recognized in the interpersonal relations (the easiest way is to observe a person in private life, at the workplace or during free time activities) and the output depends on the communication between two persons.
During my research, on the one hand, I have considered the hypothesis that people in crisis give signs of their suicidal intentions. So as a consequence they use similar verbal devices while creating their signals.
2. The formal requirements of letter writing and the farewell letter
In the farewell letters the communicational features related to the suicidal personality can be revealed more or less entirely by means of analysing the form, the content and the linguistic device system.
Referring to the question of/how the farewell letters’ authors follow the formal requirements of letter writing (address, salutation, closing formula, dating, signature and also the entire structure of the letter: introduction, main body and conclusion) Tuckman and his fellow workers already stated in 1959 that the farewell letters are without a structure and there are no requirements concerning the content. In spite of this, meeting or not meeting the formal requirements of suicidal farewell letters is partly similar to that in non-suicidal letters, partly they can go back to different reasons (the train is coming, the medicine is acting etc.).
Very often, even non-suicidal persons do not follow the requirements of letter writing, first of all, because they do not know them, secondly, in private correspondence they do not consider them obligatory.
Farewell letters are addressed mainly to family members. 91 letters of the sample are addressed to the family, 9 to the authorities (police, doctor), 7 to acquaintances, 7 to those who happen to find them and in 38 cases the addressee cannot be identified. The addressee’s degree of relation is often present in the letters. This emphasizes the communicative features of farewell letters.
More than half of the farewell letters contain a salutation, more than three quarters of them have a closing formula and less than three quarters of them contain signature. Dating is very rare in farewell letters. One of the reasons can be that the writer considers that he/she would be found on the day of the suicide. So, the time and place of the letter writing
© Kukorelli, Katalin, 2010
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almost coincides with the time and place of the suicide.
The most widespread signatures are names. Obviously, the letter itself and also the signature give more information for the addressee than for the researcher. In farewell letters salutations and closing formulas are more or less constant elements of the letter.
In the sample the number of longer letters (65) is almost the same as the number of shorter messages (63). As for the contents, there are 24 testaments. In farewell letters the elements typical for letters and those tytpical for testaments are mixed, consequently testaments also contain some letter elements. Both the letters and the testaments include orders (72) connected with the further behaviour of the addressee, or related to the funeral of the sender, rarely contract (7) or bequest (18).
The data prove that in case of suicidal farewell letters it can be said that concerning their forms and contents, they are either letters or testaments. We should note here that we can talk about the possible qualification of farewell letters as testaments, and also about the bequest and orders, because the sender died.
Farewell letters are also created by the constraint of communication. Farewell letters are private letters or private documents not regulated by formal and content requirements (there is no such thing as farewell letter-adviser). These letters are written by the suicidal persons themselves immediately before the act of suicide, as its initial step. In the farewell letters the suicide person verbalizes the reasons and circumstances of the act, thus contributing to make his/her decision concerning auto-destruction.
E.g. (110)
My dear son, K,
I ask you to be a man, all of you, try to endure this trouble..I am leaving you, it really hurts me that I had to make this decision. But I cannot bear this pain any more. I will take you all, and all the members of the family, with me in my heart. I have made this decision because of the incurable disease and the unbearable pains.
Kiss you all,
Dad, I. P.
I have cried so much because of this decision. But that is it. The time is 2 pm, and I will keep myself to it. I am saying farewell once again, I kiss you all. I pray that God be with you.
On the dot of 2 pm my life is over.
Your father, I. P.
Farewell.
The farewell letters can be analysed successfully, if the functions of them are placed into the fore-
ground, here the ontological approach does not result in anything.
Three functions of farewell letters can be distinguished:
• the device of creating and performing the decision
• the device of sending the message to the addressee
• and the initial or subsequent device of the motor mechanism of the suicide (the first phase of manuality/physicality).
3. Undecoded messages?
The question arises whether we can call the farewell letters of the persons having committed suicide undecoded messages, or are they the logical consequences of undeciphered earlier messages? Since the letter writers themselves imply that their environment could have noticed the preparations. In many cases the suicidal person composes a retrospective expectation to attract the attention of his direct environment, so there are references to earlier unsuccessful communications.
It is clear from the corpus that the suicide is preceded by a consideration period. The suicidal thought becomes a deed when the persons cannot solve their problems alone, which means that they neither can accept their situations, nor can create a new, acceptable situation. A characteristic feature of the cognitive state of the farewell letter writers is restriction, since they could not see any alternative possibilities. The letter writers describe death as the only way out.
One thing is for sure: farewell letters are late S.O.S. signals, which could be preceded by many coded messages, such as:
(41) Why didn’t you help? I tried, but that’s all I managed to do.
The point whether there is communication between the persons in crisis and their environment, and, if yes, in what form and content it than exists, depends greatly on the suicidal person’s personality, lifestyle and culture. It has turned out (from the letters and the data related to 87 persons) that most of the suicidal people occurring in the sample lived solitarily. It is well-known that it is much more difficult to bear illnesses, financial problems, work problems etc. alone, but it is also much more difficult to talk about these problems if there is nobody close to us. There are letters in which it is stated by the suicide that he or she did not speak about his or her suicidal intentions to his sibling or ex-wife because s/he did not know how to do it (101, 121). A part of the suicides expect others to solve their problems for them (they have this kind of personality
structure, socialization) and if the expected help fails to happen, they escape to self-destruction.
(56 fragment)...
I couldn’t solve anything, I’m weak and the problems just weaken me. I loved my family, it threw me away, ‘but I regret it ’. Nobody believes me on this earth that’s why I choose to leave...
Suffer you, too, my darling, because you didn’t believe me...
I made many mistakes, but I could have made things right! I feel it! It hurts! Hurts! I’m not dirty, I always help others and devastate myself!
I was wicked, I wanted to make things right, life kicked me. ‘Thanks. ’ I could have been someone! I like people, that’s why I have become a policeman. I also wanted to study, but life intervened, and a man who is less than me, but has more money and he didn’t fight like me, that’s why I’m so exhausted.
In a number of farewell letters the sender is in anguish, s/he is ambivalent. The ambivalent behaviour is indicated mainly by the emotional fluctuation. The previous statements are continuously denied by the writer, and with this he withdraws his previous statements. This may be a defence mechanism behind which the suicidal person is hidden so that s/he does not have to act. The withdrawals are frequent in the letter above, which suggests that the writer has difficulties with keeping to something. The withdrawals make the sender’s linguistic style impulsive. Withdrawing our statements during communication or the ability to modify makes us flexible, and pleasant conversationalists as well as good negotiators. However, the excessive usage of
withdrawals suggests deviant behaviour [Weintraub 1981]. The intensive employment of modifications is the sign of anguish (ibid), it covers the failure of decision-making and the total paralysis of the will.
The last phase of the period before suicide is the decision-making and the auto-destruction. The suicidal person is hindered by his or her own negative self-image to choose aggression aimed at others instead of that aimed at the self. However, the aggression towards others is often a part of the earlier behaviour.
(151)
Dear H,
In case I wouldn’t wake up, you have to know it well that I have always loved you and I always will, I’ve tried everything, but it didn’t work. I have already had the thought to kill you, but I was watching the children...
Signature
Y
So the writers of farewell letters do not endeavour to successful communication, for them it is important to manifest their love towards the ad-dressee(s) and to close orderly their earthly lives (repayment of debts, returning borrowed things, orders towards the heirs or inheritors etc).
Consequently, the positive or neutral emotions are dominant in farewell letters. The writer’s selfimage is negative, so self-qualifications occur more often in letters (letters containing positive or neutral emotions) than accusations (in letters reflecting negative and mixed emotions).
Table 1
The expression of emotions in farewell letters
Emotions Budapest- sample Békés county- sample Altogether Altogether
number % number % number %
Number of letters 109 100 43 100 152 100
Neutral 59 54,13 18 41,86 77 50,66
Positive 36 33,02 13 30,23 49 32,24
Negative 7 6,42 8 18,60 15 9,87
Mixed 7 6,42 4 9,30 11 7,24
As it is proved by the sample, reconciliation is the characteristic feature of farewell letters.
(122)
X,
You are the real sibling. I think every sibling should be like we used to be. Maybe you are the only one who can understand me now, that when you are reading this I’m not alive.
But listen, X, I don’t need this life. I don’t want to suffer, you know that I’ve always done a good job, but I don’t want to suffer any more. So far I’ve had some luck, but I don’t wait for it any more. I don’t want anything. I’ve got tired of it, there’s no reason for me to bear the burden of life. I know that (according to) wicked people will accuse E., but it’s not like that. You believe me, don’t you?
You won’t always remember this letter, will you? Remember the good times.
Don’t ever be sad, don’t let anything hurt you. Live happily. It’s true that now without me, but live a bit on behalf of me, since you are young, life is still in front of you. Be very happy.
If you have time, come and see mother and the others, they miss you.
Your loving sibling
4. Negation and suicide
So far only a few people have been doing research work in the field of suicidal linguistic behaviour in Hungary. Those worth to be mentioned here are the studies by Kézdi Balâzs on culture and suicide (1987, 1988, 1991, 1995/a, 2000), and those by Osvâth and his fellow workers (1996) on the transcultural analysis of suicidal farewell letters. Ké-zdi was the first to examine the suicidal text on the basis of discursive theory, which means that he deals with the understanding of suicidal phenomenon rather than the explanation of motives leading to suicide. This means a shift in the view of the suicide. The author also makes controversial statements, for example, according to him ‘in Hungarian we cannot escape negation in case of suicide’ [Balâzs 1987: 87].
However, these pieces of research have come to a halt on the level of analysing the expression. The linguistic conclusions are entangled and they do not use the possibility to apply language, as a diagnostic device.
However, suicide is also possible if the negation is missing in the communication. This fact is supported by a description quoted from a university text-book: ‘Among patients suffering from abnormal depression (dysthymia) the aspiration to commit suicide is very frequent, which is often combined with dissimulation, that is they seem to be cheerful, they produce positive verbal manifestations, outwitting the checking supervision of the environment ’ [Gyula 1961: 109].
My own research works have also proved the thesis that negative grammar unquestionably occurs in suicidal communication, but it is not essentially the concomitant of it. In the entire sample negative grammar is missing in 29 letters. (These letters are farewell letters of mortal suicides!) As an illustration here is the following letter:
(136)
Instead of a testament
In case my life would end without any preliminary sign than the inheritor of all my bequest should be my goddaughter, X.
If nursing and care is necessary, my house should be given to those who tackle this duty. In this case, I leave the money in saving books to X. X must be informed in any case, because she lives in Y, his address is: ...
Signature
Statement
Undersigned B. A. resident of ..., I hereby give my consent, even request it, that after my death I would be cremated. My ashes should be placed in the ... churchyard, in the previously redeemed tomb. The exact place is known by the caretaker of the churchyard. And the coloured opening of the cover by C. D. craftsman.
Date
Signature
Among the 29 farewell letters without a negative grammar, however, 6 contain implicit negation. In these letters, the negation also expresses the rejection of the negative side. For example:
(100)
For me only you were life. You took my family, my friends and everything away from me, just to have only you . It happened. I tackled it.
This is the end.
I think of you with love, and I say goodbye with love.
Signature
For me, life was our relationship.
(The relationship ended=there is no more reason to live on.)
It becomes clear from the sample that some kind of loss leads to suicide (the loss of health, the beloved person, the financial stability, lovesickness etc.). The person experiencing this loss places a sign of equality between the loss and life and comes to the conclusion that life has no meaning.
The suicides, in most cases, denominate the causes of their deeds, and the object of loss can be concluded from that. From about the quarter of the letters the cause eliciting the suicide cannot be discovered. The suicidal persons, with their fatal act, reject the lack of the beloved person, that of the good family relations, of health etc.
I have classified the negations occurring in the letters into 5 groups: declarative pseudo-negation and negation, postulative negation, rogative negation, conditional negation and benevolent negation. In the corpus I have found 784 negative particles (no, not, there is no(t), neither...nor, never, nowhere, nothing etc.) and this corresponds to 679 negative segments. The difference in the numbers is caused by the fact that in 105 cases we can talk about piled negation occurrence.
Table 2
The negation and intention to speak in suicide notes
Expression point of view Negation Pcs % Content point of view Pcs % Intention to speak
Declarative negation 516 65,82 440 64,80 Fact-finding
Declarative pseudonegation 82 10,46 78 11,49 Rejection of negatives
Postulative negation 53 6,76 42 6,19 Prohibition
Rogative negation 66 8,42 55 8,10 Request
Conditional negation 19 2,41 16 2,36 Instruction
Benevolent negation 48 6,12 48 7,07 Lingual stereotype
Total 784 100,00 679 100,00
Total rejection 1463 53,59 46,41
It is clear from the contents of the table that declarative negation makes up the largest group, as it accounts for 65,82% of the negations and from the point of view of contents - 64,80 %. The sender uses the declarative negation to state facts. For the most part the letter writer states what he cannot/do not want to do, what he did not do [e.g. I did not touch what is not mine, I did not give myself over to bribery (112)], and what he will not do [e.g. I will not leave.Z (119)]. Sometimes he qualifies himself or the addressee(s) [e.g. ...forgive me, for I surely was not the best person towards you. (141); I am not senile, ... (10)] etc.
Declarative pseudonegation (10,46%), and
11,49% describes rejection, that is refusing the negative. The letter writer rejects the lack of something with the help of pseudonegation. This something was given to him earlier, but is now lost (loss of object). Health takes the first place in losses [The reason for my act is that I cannot live together with the pain of the incurable cancer of the liver. (20)]. It is followed by the loss of the loved person, then the self-esteem, trust, hope and loss of financial security. In many cases losses accumulated.
The content of postulative and rogative negation is the same, the only difference is in the intention of speech. In the first case, the sender prohibits the addressees from something, in the second case he is requesting something from them [e.g. Do not give to B anything because he didn’t even come to visit me when I had the surgery. (117); Do not be broken down, you are much stronger than me, ... (42)]. Ro-gative negation occurs more often than the postula-tive.
Conditional negation accounts for only 2,41%, and 2,36% of the negations, so the instruction built on “if - “then” type of clausal structure [e.g. If I don’t come home, then .you will find me hanging in
the forest. (15)] is not typical of suicide letters. It only occurred in 10 letters (6,58%).
Benevolent negation, that is the lingual stereotype, was used 48-48 times, which accounts for 6,12% of the negations and 7,07% of the refusal segments. The lingual stereotypes occur in the one forth of the letters.
It has to be made clear that it is impossible to speak without using negatives. The use of the negative particle plays a very constructive role both during the ontogenesis and the adulthood. The negative attitude stays with us during our whole lives, and it shows the resistance of the ego to the intensive intrusive intentions. The first “no” is a milestone in the growth of the child, it signifies the establishment of autonomous borderlines of the personality [Wein-traub 1981]. The use of the negative particle by adults also has a lot to do with the protective mechanism of refusal. Refusal usually concerns the “not admitting” of some aspects of reality, but the negative appliances do not always mean refusal. And there is something else we should not forget about in relation to negative grammar and suicide: negative appliances are “just” lingual signs, and lingual signs have no meaning without sign communication!
As a consequence of what has been said before:
• Rejection can neither be realized by negation alone nor by refusal alone. Negation comes across the expressive point of view, while refusal shows in the content point of view.
• It is the communicative meaning that is primarily important from the aspect of the research of suicidal lingual behaviour.
5. Taboos and the suicide note
Suicide note is a late “supplication”, which in the case of 40 people was provably preceded by a nondecoded message. This may refer to the fact that the question of death and suicide is surrounded by fear.
In society, people have to obey certain behavioural rules and legal and moral norms. There are norms, which are dependant on social circumstances and there are ones which are valid in all eras and all societies (e.g. prohibition to kill the members of the given community, or the love of parents and children towards each other).
In 36 letters suicidal persons name (denote) death/suicide, in 35 cases they use euphemisms and in 90 cases they apply allusions. 26 letters do not refer to death in any way. The suicide could declare what he intends to do as he is no more limited by the customs of the society he is leaving. Why does the writer choose circumlocution? Why doesn’t he tell about it in advance, or why does not the person struggling with suicidal thoughts tell in an understandable way his problem to e.g. the addressee of his letter? It would be difficult to answer this, if possible at all. Our culture does not make it possible, he does not know what it will bring out of the addressee, as there is no clear-cut attitude to such actions. Let us have a look at some euphemisms and allusions used in suicide notes for the expression of suicide and death!
Euphemisms:
(4) My everything hurts, so I rather finish my life.
(63) I ask everybody not to be angry with me for leaving so suddenly.
(110) of you I ask one thing, be a human in everything, try to cope with this problem.
Allusions:
(36) I had enough of life.
(93) My act is more of selfishness than cowardice.
(130) My time is over.
6. Appearance of communicative functions in suicide letters
Suicide notes, even if they are late messages, were created by the compulsion of mutual understanding deriving from cooperation, and they function as a cognitive, communicative and information carrier in the process of the purposeful human activity. Mutual understanding belongs to the proper ending of the earthly life of the suicidal person. None of the functions are autocrat in the letters. This may only happen in case of few-words letters. In longer letters more functions appear.
Also in suicide notes, as we are speaking about texts and communicative units, communicative/lingual functions appear inseparably. However, the dominant lingual function(s) can be identified in every letter.
In the suicide letters of suicides ending in death, the senders convey information, sometimes in an emotionally neutral way, sometimes manifesting
positive or negative emotions. The suicidal person is trying to produce an effect on the addressee with all these. The fatigue function is expressed in the salutation, the introductory paragraph and in the farewell-formulas. Although this is about pseudo-interaction, the sender is still aiming at the rounding-off of his thoughts.
Every communicative function is present in the letters, except for the metalingual function. The hierarchy of the emotive, referential and conative functions decides which function dominates in a suicide letter.
The odd thing about the fatigue function is that it is manifested in an “incomplete” form. Salutation can be found in 89, and ending formula in 119 letters. In the other cases, especially if the suicide happened at home, it can be assumed that the letters are addressed to the family members. An understandable peculiarity of suicide notes is that there is no affidavit about keeping in touch. Of course there are cases where the sender expresses his regret about not having the chance to meet the addressee or addressees anymore.
Let us have a look at the manifestation of communicative functions in a suicide note. In the following letter I mark the dominant function with bold letters in brackets. The given dominant function refers to the text before it.
(27)
Dearest B. and L.!
Do not be ashamed of what I did, think about the fact that it is better for me this way. (fatigue) I also thank you for everything, you know that I always loved you. Keep on getting on well with B., love each other, like you always did. (conative) Whatever is left here belongs to you, enjoy it, and you may have a better life. B. did a lot for me, do not let them calumniate him, he doesn’t deserve it. (referential)
Nobody is responsible for my death, I wanted it. It didn’t happen because of somebody’s fault, it is because of my illness. (referential)
Please excuse my messy writing, but I cannot write in a nicer, better way anymore, as my everything is shaking. (conative) May the Good God give you very good health because you deserve it. (conative) Bury me cremated, that is easier, and that is what I want. (referential)
I cannot write anymore, I can only say goodbye in this way instead of a last hug or kiss M. (fatigue)
Ps. You don’t need to inform anybody about my death, no big crowd is necessary, it should be made in the simplest way (referential)
In one respect, the above suicide note is filled with the love and gratitude towards the addressees for what they had done for the sender. On the other hand, the sender urges the addressees to keep in
touch even after his death, and that the ones concerned would not feel guilty because of the sender’s act. The letter contains a two-word declaration that nobody is to be blamed for his suicidal act. The addressee of the given sentences is supposedly the authorities (police, doctor). Four communicative functions can be found in the above letter, but the conative function can be called dominant which is to impose an intentional effect on the addressees. The quoted letter demonstrates well that the functions cannot always be segregated within the text, not even within one sentence. For example:
I also thank you for everything, you know that I always loved you. Keep on getting on well with B., love each other, like you always did. (emotive, conative)
7. The pseudo-interaction and the suicide note
The ones writing suicide notes do not only communicate but also integrate with the addressees. In the meantime the suicidal person is able to keep out of time and space, that is he makes us see the bygones from such a time-perspective, which he himself has not gone through.
We can examine the things written down in the suicide note as if they were simultaneously existing (synchronic view) or as things that are followed by each other (diachronic view). The synchronic and the diachronic views are both present in suicide notes. In synchrony only one perspective can be considered, that of the speaker/sender, that is we make the time of the actions parallel with the moment of speaking. The diachronic view most of the time expresses a back view or rarely a forward view compared to the time of the act, or the reading of the letter. Examining the diachronic view gives us more information from the point of view of the subject.
Here are some examples of the expression of the two above mentioned (diachrony) perspectives:
Prospective perspective
(7) Tell B and K that I died of asthmatic seizure. Thanks.
(146) I really want you to come to my funeral. ... If you listen to your heart, you will come, to see me for the last time, the one who will never forget you.
The senders communicate and integrate with the addressees in the above examples as well, as they form such requests (give orders), which will be fulfilled by the addressees after their death. In our culture it is the proper thing to execute the wish of the dead. The senders are aware of this, that is the reason they so often give orders, and that is why they ask realistic things from the point of view of per-formability. In the first sentence of the example, the writer is even grateful for the performance of his
request. But feedback is out of question, so we can only speak about pseudo-interaction.
Retrospective perspective
(33) My children, I ask your forgiveness as well, for I was not the best father to you.
(68) My act was not elicited by any crime, bribery or financial problem.
(139) Do not worry, I thought it over a hundred times, it was the best thing I could do.
The letter-writer writes about the things to come as if they had already happened. Communication gives the semblance of interaction here as well. What the writer presents as present tense refers to the time after the suicidal act. The time between the writing of the letter and the act cannot be broken up into segments, as the suicide note became the tool of the finalizing of the decision and the first step of the act.
Prospective - retrospective perspective
(57) Just do not dare to say the very thing that I did this with an unclear mind.
(98) You can pass the word around the factory that I committed suicide because of her.
(101) You know, I could never touch anybody else again, be in love with anybody, sleep with anybody. You were my life.
So, what is the real course of happenings in time? First of all, the suicide decides about how to solve his problems. Because he does not find the way out, he commits his self-destroying act. When the suicide is discovered, that is when they find the dead body, the suicide note does not come to the addressee right away. The addressee (the authorities are very rarely the addressees of these letters) can only get acquainted with the content of the letter during the procedure started in connection with the unusual death, or after closing the case.
It can be seen from the suicide notes that the writer “speaks” with the addressee as if he was not separated neither in time, nor in space.
The outline below shows the actual course of happenings. These occurrences either happen at the time, (actual notification time) - the first step of this is the letter writing -before (time preceding the actual notification time) or after the act (time following the actual notification time). I indicated the part referring to this with bold letters.
The other base of comparison in suicide notes is the time of reading the letter. I have referred to this as supposed actual notification time in the outline. So the occurrences connected to this time either happened before the supposed actual notification time (time preceding the supposed actual notification time) or after it (time following the supposed actual notification time). I indicted the part referring to this with bolt and italic letters.
In a sense the greatest amount of the occurrences is done from the point of view of the things to come. are prospective - retrospective, so the retrospection
Figure 1
8. Summary
The examination of the sample proved that when analysing the suicidal lingual behaviour, it is the examination of the communicative basis that is primary; the system of communicative means has a secondary role. Negation plays an important role in the decision-making; when the decision is final (in case of destructive solution), the tools of negation express something else (establishments of facts, request, order). In the letters, if they are not only made up of a few words or sentences, we can encounter most of the negatives when describing the causes and circumstances. Negation is not only expressed by negative segments (negations and non-negations). (I’ve had enough of misery...)
The writings referred to in the article are from issued publications of the author:
Additional material to the familiarization of suicide notes of complete suicides. Is suicide note a letter? In: Articles of the College of Dunaüjvâros 2000. XXIII. College Publications, Dunaüjvâros, 2002. P.255-262. (16743 n)
The historical review of suicide note-
investigations. In: Psychotherapy, XI., 5., Animula, Budapest, 2002. P.317-330. (67171 n).
Der Abschiedsbrief als spezielles Sprachgebrauchsregister. Negation und Verneinung. (erste Ergebnisse) In: Applied Linguistic Conference publication. IV. Language examination and applied linguistic conference. DF, Dunaüjvâros, 2002. P.33-42. (18742 n)
Suicide note, as special language application register. (Is suicide note a letter? The message of the suicide.) Psychotherapy, XI., 6., Animula, Budapest, 2002. P.442-432. (44907n).
Suicide note, as special language application register. The problem of negation. Transylvanian psychological review, 2003. (32414n)
Suicide note, as special language application register. Communicative time spheres. Applied Linguistics. Veszprem, 2003., 3/1, P.93-102. (15545n)
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СУИЦИДНОЕ ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКОЕ ПОВЕДЕНИЕ (выводы, сделанные на основе всестороннего анализа прощальных записок,
написанных 152 самоубийцами)
Каталин Кукорелли
профессор кафедры иностранных языков
Колледж Дунайвароша, Венгрия
В статье анализируются предсмертные записки, созданные 152 самоубийцами на венгерском языке. Примеры из выборки даются в переводе на английский язык. Автор рассматривает структурные, грамматические и содержательные особенности данных записок, сопоставляя их с общепринятыми правилами написания писем. Проводится классификация предсмертных записок, основанная на их всестороннем анализе.
Ключевые слова: суицидное намерение; самоубийца; прощальное письмо; суицидная коммуникация; лингвистическое поведение.
