Semiotics

In: Semiotics Theory and Applications ISBN 978-1-61728-992-7
Editor: Steven C. Hamel © 2010 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 3

LANGUAGE, EMOTION, AND HEALTH:

A SEMIOTIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE WRITING CURE

Louise Sundararajan

1

, Chulmin Kim

2

, Martina Reynolds

3

and

Chris R. Brewin

4

(^1) Rochester Regional Forensic Unit, NY
(^2) Rochester Institute of Technology
(^3) Brunel University
(^4) University College London

ABSTRACT

The writing cure, otherwise known as expressive writing, is widely accepted as an

effective intervention. Hundreds of studies have shown that writing about one‘s thoughts

and feelings for 3 days, with at least 15 minutes a day, has beneficial effects on physical

and mental health. Yet, after more than two decades of research, there remains a large

gap between evidence and explanation for the phenomenon. The problem, we suggest,

lies in the general neglect to gain a deeper understanding of the basic building blocks of

the writing cure, namely language. This vacuum can be filled by Peircean semiotics.

Peirce‘s triadic circuitry of the sign is explicated and applied to the development of a

taxonomy of expressions of self and emotions. This taxonomy has been implemented by

a pattern matching language analysis program, SSWC (Sundararajan-Schubert Word

Count) to test our theory-based predictions of the health consequences of language use.

Two empirical studies of the writing cure that utilized SSWC for textual analysis are

presented as demonstration of the heuristic value of applied semiotics.

The writing cure has had an impressive track record since its first introduction by

Pennebaker (Pennebaker, 1985; Pennebaker and Beall, 1986) in the eighties. For the past

two decades, hundreds of studies have shown that writing about one‘s thoughts and

feelings has beneficial effects on physical and mental health (Frattaroli, 2006). But why?

What is it about language that its utilization for emotion expression has consequences for

health? This question has never been addressed by the extant theories of the writing cure

(e.g., Bootzin, 1997; King, 2002; Pennebaker, Mayne, and Francis, 1997). An

explanation that seems to have the most empirical support (Frattaroli, 2006) is emotion

exposure theory (Sloan and Marx, 2004), which by considering language use as an