AUTHOR=Du Xiaowei 

TITLE=Linguistic Features and Psychological States: The Case of Virginia Woolf

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.823313

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.823313

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>This study investigated the relation between psychological states and linguistic features with the case of Virginia Woolf. We analyzed the data from <italic>The Diary of Virginia Woolf</italic> and <italic>Virginia Woolf: Biography</italic> by automatic text analysis and statistical analysis, including stepwise multiple regression and Deep Learning algorithm. The results suggested that the significant linguistic features can jointly predict the psychological states of Virginia Woolf, including the emotional value of <italic>anger</italic>, the absolutist word “<italic>everything</italic>,” and the total of first-person plural pronouns. In addition, we found that the total use of first-person plural pronouns and the emotional value of <italic>anger</italic> were negatively related to mental health of Virginia Woolf. While the use of the absolutist word “<italic>everything</italic>” was positively related to mental health of Virginia Woolf. Meanwhile, we developed a model that can predict the psychological states of Virginia Woolf, with 86.9% accuracy. We discussed the findings and enumerated the limitations of this study at the end of the paper. The results not only complemented previous studies in the understanding of the relation between language and psychological health, but also facilitated timely identification, intervention, and prevention of mental disorders.</p>