Written Goodbyes: How Genre and Sociolinguistic Factors Influence the Content and Style of Suicide Notes

Lucia Busso; Claudia Roberta Combei

Written Goodbyes: How Genre and Sociolinguistic Factors Influence the Content and Style of Suicide Notes

Lucia Busso
, Claudia Roberta Combei

Università di Pavia

Research output: Chapter in Book/Published conference output › Conference publication

87 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The study analyses a novel corpus of 76 freely available English authentic suicide notes (SNs) (letters and social media posts), spanning from 1902 to 2023. By using NLP and corpus linguistics tool, this research aims at decoding patterns of content and style in SNs. In particular, we explore variation in linguistic features in SNs across sociolinguistic factors (age, gender, addressee, time period) and between text type - referred to as genre - (letters vs. online posts). To this end, we use topic models, subjectivity analysis, and sentiment and emotion analysis. Results highlight how both discourse and emotion expression, show differences depending on genre, gender, age group and time period. We suggest a more nuanced approach to personalized prevention and intervention strategies based on insights from computer-assisted linguistic analysis.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the Tenth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2024): Pisa, Italy, December 4-6, 2024.
Editors	Felice Dell'Orletta, Alessandro Lenci, Simonetta Montemagni, Rachele Sprugnoli
Publisher	CEUR-WS.org
Number of pages	8
Volume	3878
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 4 Dec 2024
Event	10th Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics, CLiC-it 2024 - Pisa, Italy Duration: 4 Dec 2024 → 6 Dec 2024

Publication series

Name	CEUR Workshop Proceedings
Publisher	CEUR-WS.org
ISSN (Electronic)	1613-0073

Conference

Conference	10th Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics, CLiC-it 2024
Country/Territory	Italy
City	Pisa
Period	4/12/24 → 6/12/24

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

sentiment and emotion analysis
subjectivity analysis
suicide notes
topic modelling

Access to Document

Written Goodbyes_ How Genre and Sociolinguistic Factors Influence the Content and Style of Suicide Notes_2024
Copyright © 2024 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Final published version, 933 KBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

Busso, L., & Combei, C. R. (2024). Written Goodbyes: How Genre and Sociolinguistic Factors Influence the Content and Style of Suicide Notes. In F. Dell'Orletta, A. Lenci, S. Montemagni, & R. Sprugnoli (Eds.), Proceedings of the Tenth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2024): Pisa, Italy, December 4-6, 2024. (Vol. 3878). (CEUR Workshop Proceedings). CEUR-WS.org. Advance online publication.

Busso, Lucia ; Combei, Claudia Roberta. / Written Goodbyes: How Genre and Sociolinguistic Factors Influence the Content and Style of Suicide Notes. Proceedings of the Tenth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2024): Pisa, Italy, December 4-6, 2024.. editor / Felice Dell'Orletta ; Alessandro Lenci ; Simonetta Montemagni ; Rachele Sprugnoli. Vol. 3878 CEUR-WS.org, 2024. (CEUR Workshop Proceedings).

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title = "Written Goodbyes: How Genre and Sociolinguistic Factors Influence the Content and Style of Suicide Notes",

abstract = "The study analyses a novel corpus of 76 freely available English authentic suicide notes (SNs) (letters and social media posts), spanning from 1902 to 2023. By using NLP and corpus linguistics tool, this research aims at decoding patterns of content and style in SNs. In particular, we explore variation in linguistic features in SNs across sociolinguistic factors (age, gender, addressee, time period) and between text type - referred to as genre - (letters vs. online posts). To this end, we use topic models, subjectivity analysis, and sentiment and emotion analysis. Results highlight how both discourse and emotion expression, show differences depending on genre, gender, age group and time period. We suggest a more nuanced approach to personalized prevention and intervention strategies based on insights from computer-assisted linguistic analysis.",

keywords = "sentiment and emotion analysis, subjectivity analysis, suicide notes, topic modelling",

author = "Lucia Busso and Combei, \{Claudia Roberta\}",

note = "Copyright {\textcopyright} 2024 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/; 10th Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics, CLiC-it 2024 ; Conference date: 04-12-2024 Through 06-12-2024",

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day = "4",

language = "English",

volume = "3878",

series = "CEUR Workshop Proceedings",

publisher = "CEUR-WS.org",

editor = "Felice Dell'Orletta and Alessandro Lenci and Simonetta Montemagni and Rachele Sprugnoli",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the Tenth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2024): Pisa, Italy, December 4-6, 2024.",

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Busso, L & Combei, CR 2024, Written Goodbyes: How Genre and Sociolinguistic Factors Influence the Content and Style of Suicide Notes. in F Dell'Orletta, A Lenci, S Montemagni & R Sprugnoli (eds), Proceedings of the Tenth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2024): Pisa, Italy, December 4-6, 2024.. vol. 3878, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, CEUR-WS.org, 10th Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics, CLiC-it 2024, Pisa, Italy, 4/12/24.

Written Goodbyes: How Genre and Sociolinguistic Factors Influence the Content and Style of Suicide Notes. / Busso, Lucia; Combei, Claudia Roberta.
Proceedings of the Tenth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2024): Pisa, Italy, December 4-6, 2024.. ed. / Felice Dell'Orletta; Alessandro Lenci; Simonetta Montemagni; Rachele Sprugnoli. Vol. 3878 CEUR-WS.org, 2024. (CEUR Workshop Proceedings).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Published conference output › Conference publication

TY - GEN

T1 - Written Goodbyes: How Genre and Sociolinguistic Factors Influence the Content and Style of Suicide Notes

AU - Busso, Lucia

AU - Combei, Claudia Roberta

PY - 2024/12/4

Y1 - 2024/12/4

N2 - The study analyses a novel corpus of 76 freely available English authentic suicide notes (SNs) (letters and social media posts), spanning from 1902 to 2023. By using NLP and corpus linguistics tool, this research aims at decoding patterns of content and style in SNs. In particular, we explore variation in linguistic features in SNs across sociolinguistic factors (age, gender, addressee, time period) and between text type - referred to as genre - (letters vs. online posts). To this end, we use topic models, subjectivity analysis, and sentiment and emotion analysis. Results highlight how both discourse and emotion expression, show differences depending on genre, gender, age group and time period. We suggest a more nuanced approach to personalized prevention and intervention strategies based on insights from computer-assisted linguistic analysis.

AB - The study analyses a novel corpus of 76 freely available English authentic suicide notes (SNs) (letters and social media posts), spanning from 1902 to 2023. By using NLP and corpus linguistics tool, this research aims at decoding patterns of content and style in SNs. In particular, we explore variation in linguistic features in SNs across sociolinguistic factors (age, gender, addressee, time period) and between text type - referred to as genre - (letters vs. online posts). To this end, we use topic models, subjectivity analysis, and sentiment and emotion analysis. Results highlight how both discourse and emotion expression, show differences depending on genre, gender, age group and time period. We suggest a more nuanced approach to personalized prevention and intervention strategies based on insights from computer-assisted linguistic analysis.

KW - sentiment and emotion analysis

KW - subjectivity analysis

KW - suicide notes

KW - topic modelling

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UR - https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3878/

M3 - Conference publication

AN - SCOPUS:85214357135

VL - 3878

T3 - CEUR Workshop Proceedings

BT - Proceedings of the Tenth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2024): Pisa, Italy, December 4-6, 2024.

A2 - Dell'Orletta, Felice

A2 - Lenci, Alessandro

A2 - Montemagni, Simonetta

A2 - Sprugnoli, Rachele

PB - CEUR-WS.org

T2 - 10th Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics, CLiC-it 2024

Y2 - 4 December 2024 through 6 December 2024

ER -

Busso L, Combei CR. Written Goodbyes: How Genre and Sociolinguistic Factors Influence the Content and Style of Suicide Notes. In Dell'Orletta F, Lenci A, Montemagni S, Sprugnoli R, editors, Proceedings of the Tenth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2024): Pisa, Italy, December 4-6, 2024.. Vol. 3878. CEUR-WS.org. 2024. (CEUR Workshop Proceedings). Epub 2024 Dec 4.

Written Goodbyes: How Genre and Sociolinguistic Factors Influence the Content and Style of Suicide Notes

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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Cite this