The Language of Clinical Psychology: A Linguistic Analysis of English Research Articles

Which are the linguistic features characterising the English language of clinical psychology and why are they so distinctive? The present thesis aimed at exploring the multi-faceted nature of this specialised language in depth. As instrumental to the in-depth linguistic analysis, a theoretical overview of English specialised discourse was illustrated. After that, research articles of clinical psychology were gathered and analysed with AntConc and a wide variety of linguistic resources (e.g., specialised dictionaries, dictionaries of general English, encyclopaedias, specialised websites, specialised manuals and academic lecture material). The linguistic analysis focused on multi-dimensionality (level of specialisation, internal multi-disciplinary variation), linguistic features (lexis, morphosyntax, textuality) with particular focus on lexical aspects, and word-formation processes characterising English psychological terminology. In particular, the in-depth analysis revealed that the language of clinical psychology is particularly characterised by internal multi-disciplinary variation, given the confluence of various disciplinary fields (e.g., medicine, biology, statistics, physics, computer science, linguistics, sociology, philosophy), which also justifies the wide range of borrowings from other specialised languages. The level of specialisation oscillates between formalisation (given the presence of symbols, formulae, graphs and diagrams) and scientific exposition (given the highly-specialised value of contents and terminology). Very recurrent are also borrowings from classical languages, which often coexist with English-derived equivalents (which are selected, for instance, according to the target audience and thus the level of specialisation required, i.e., expert vs. laymen). As regards word-formation processes, of particular interest were neologisms coined through acronymy and abbreviation (which are often characterised by polysemous nature, also given the confluence of other specialised fields such as statistics), compounding, and analogy.