This paper examines the representation of major depression (MD) and bipolar
disorder (BPD) from a cognitive linguistic perspective. Investigating
psychological disorders linguistically has been under the water for almost a
decade now, with the pioneering study of Eynon (2002). Many recent linguistic
studies have approached mental health discourse, in an attempt to better
understand and deal with various physiological and psychological problems.
Major depressive disorder (MD) “is a common illness worldwide, with more
than 300 million people affected…is the leading cause of disability worldwide,
and at its worst, [it] can lead to suicide." (“WHO"). On the other hand, Bipolar
disorder is one of the fast spreading psychological disorders. In fact, according
to the World Health Organization, bipolar disorder is the sixth leading cause of
disability in the world. Working with depression patients and helping them
explore and identify their disorder is the first step towards treatment. The
present paper is a depression-corpus-based analysis of the verbal and visual
discourse of patients to investigate how depression is framed linguistically,
drawing on Lakoff and Johnson's seminal Conceptual Metaphor Theory (1980)
and Forceville (2008) Pictorial Metaphor Theory. The verbal data show four
main patterns of conceptual metaphors: DEPRESSION IS DISEASE,
DEPRESSION IS COMPANION, DEPRESSION IS ABYSS, and
DEPRESSION IS ENEMY. Visually, DEPRESSION is framed as ENEMY,
DEATH and ABYSS. Psychiatrists and psychologists may find the findings of
this work helpful as they continue to study mental health discourse.