Hargitai, R., Naszódi, M., Kis, B., Nagy, L., Bóna, A. and László, J.

(2007) Linguistic markers of

depressive dynamics in self-narratives: Negation and self-reference. Empirical Text and Culture
Research 3, 26-38.

LINGUISTIC MARKERS OF DEPRESSIVE DYNAMICS IN SELF-

NARRATIVES: NEGATION AND SELF-REFERENCE1

Rita Hargitai *, Mátyás Naszódi **, Balázs Kis **, László Nagy *, Adrien Bóna *, János
László ***

*University of Pécs, Institute of Psychology

6. Ifjusag utja, Pecs, Hungary, H-7624
** Morphologic Ltd, Budapest
*** Hungarian Scientific Academy Research Institute of Psychology,University of Pécs,
Institute of Psychology

Abstract
The first part of the study deals with the psychological meaning of negation and self-
reference. Next we introduce a new content analysis program for the automatic coding of
negation and self-reference. We also give an overview of former empirical studies of negation
and self-reference, which were based on word-frequency count. We argue that the program
innovation as it can perform morphological analysis that available English language softwares
are not capable of. The paper presents the process of operationalisation on the level of the

1
This research was performed in cooperation between the Morphologic Ltd., the Institute of Psychology of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Psychology of the University of Pécs. It was supported by
the grant NKFP 2001/5/26; NKFP 2005/6/074; OTKA T-1386 and OTKA T-049413. The authors are grateful to
T.M. Lillis for improving the style and language of the paper.. Correspondence should be addressed to the first
author: hargitairita@freemail.hu

1
linguistic markers of negation and self-reference. It also provides empirical results in terms of
the validity and reliability of negation and self-reference algorithms.

Key words: negation, self-reference, narrative psychology, content analytic programs

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MEANING OF NEGATION AND SELF-REFERENCE

The palette of psychological theories referring to negation is extremely colourful. Since
beyond the classical approach of Sigmund Freud (1925) we have to emphasise developmental,
clinical and cultural psychological aspects, as well (Kézdi, 1995). The relevance of the study
of negation is based on the idea that the form and especially the extent of ’saying no’ often
determines the relationship between the individual and the community. Negation ensures
socialization, the acclimatization of the healthy individual to his or her environment and
moral standards. Negation guarantees the operation of society by means of repression,
inhibition and alienation of certain needs. Extremely high rate of ’saying no’, that is the
predomination of negation may mean depreciation of the world, which implies negativism,
some self-danger or destruction in any case. The dominance of negation may refer either to a
presuicidal syndrome (Ringel, 1976) or also to the negativism of self-aggression consequent
upon alcoholism or drug-dependency.
As for narrative psychology, it is very important to take self-reference into
consideration, since our life narratives are necessarily first person singular narratives,
forasmuch as the narrator and the main hero is definitely the self. The story is about the
experiences of the self, nevertheless it is not necessary that the narrator − while recalling his
or her own memories − should render an account of his or her solely subjective observations,
without reference to his or her partners’ experiences. On the other hand, it may happen that
the experiences of the self are missing from the narrative, therefore the self is omitted. A
focus on linguistic markers of self-reference is important because we can infer the psychic
procession of the self from it. For example, the exaggerated form of covetousness of
everything (values, images, internal and external substances) may appear in egoism or
egocentrism, moreover, it may denote narcissism and autism, where the transgression of the
bounds of reality signals a real root of danger (Szondi, 1952). Another example is the low
level of self-reference may correlate exceptional reduction of sense of self/self-respect.

2
PRIOR EMPIRICAL STUDIES ON MEASURING NEGATION AND SELF-
REFERENCE
Determining the quantitative parameters of linguistic markers referring to negation and self-
reference in a given text plays an important part in the distinction between the pathological
and healthy mode of operation. The strategy focusing on word-frequency is based on the
hypothesis according to which beyond the word-for-word meaning and irrespective of its
semantic context, the frequency of expressions used by us has psychological relevance. The
peculiar pattern of our thinking and behaviour may be correlated with the style of our speech.
Furthermore, diverse psychometrical experiments (Gleser et al., 1959; Pennebaker and King,
1999) demonstrated that the style of speaking characteristic of an individual might be constant
from the point of view of time as well as the inner consistence of the text. Finally, it can be
hypothesized that the similarity of parlance materializes in the conformability to behaviour
and the intrapsychic occurrences.
From the former empirical studies on negation and self-reference, we highlight the
studies of Weintraub (1981, 1989) and Pennebaker et al. (2001, 2003). At the beginning of the
1980s, Walter Weintraub, studying the speech of more than two hundred people as a
psychiatrist, came to the conclusion that speech shows psychological adaptiveness, pre-
eminently in stressful situations. Weintraub (1981, 1989) argues that coping-strategies and
psychic preventive actions might be detected in the content, style and tempo of speech. In
order to test his hypothesis, he elaborated a standard method, in the course of which he asked
his participants to talk to a microphone for ten minutes about an arbitrary topic they consider
unpleasant. Next, some naïve encoders put the rewritten speech through a linguistic analysis,
according to categories based chiefly upon intuition. Weintraub distinguished fifteen
categories that he called grammatical structures, which beyond the linguistic dimensions of
first person pronouns (i.e. I, me) and negatives (no, not) included verbs expressing feelings
(i.e. love, like, hate), retractors (but, on the other hand, however, still, nevertheless, although),
qualifiers (nice, kind) etc. Several experiments were carried out in Hungary, too, which were
based on the modified Weintraub-categories. One of the earliest of them can be attached to
the research of Kézdi (1995), who coded the first thousand words of telephone calls of an
operating crisis-line in Hungary which were classified previously as ’crisis’ and ’non-crisis’.
In the course of the content analysis, he came to the conclusion that the textual appearance of
negative grammar and self-destruction distinguished the crisis-conversations from everything
else. Fekete and Osváth (2001) analysed e-mails of groups − corresponding through the world
wide web and dealing with suicide, depression and anxiety problems − contextually and

3
semantically. They discovered that the group with suicidal intentions is isolated significantly
from the two others by negation and dichotomous thinking.
The verbal behaviour-analysis made by Weintraub does not enable the elaboration of
extensive corpora because of the manual coding and it therefore being energy- and time-
consuming. In order to remedy this inadequacy, the LIWC2001 computer program was
developed (Pennebaker et al., 2001), which contains 2290 English words and stems rang into
72 categories. Beyond the standard linguistic dimensions – wordage, wordage of a sentence,
first, second and third person, singular and plural, negation –LIWC incorporates categories
referring to psychological processes such as emotional life, cognition or sensory, perceptive
and social phenomena. Accordingly, LIWC2001 belongs to programs analysing word-
frequency and content, where the dictionary file of the software comprises the word-lists of a
group with the given categories. When given the proper command, it compares every single
expression of the word-list to the words of the analysed text. At the end of the operation we
get a frequency rate, which indicates the percental appearance of the given word-category in
the analysed text (László, 2005). A new epoch is marked with new software in the fields of
the word-frequency analysis, since with the help of this new program, extensive texts – e.g.
literary products (Stirman et al., 2004), essays (Rude et al., 2004), e-mails and newspapers
(Cohn et al., 2004) – can be analysed quickly, reliably and validly.
LIWC2001, the electronic word-frequency analyser, came out in English; its inland
adaptation generates several limitations. So as to comprehend these problems, we have to
touch upon some linguistic phenomena. Linguistic typology may organise languages into
three groups (Greenberg, 1974): isolating languages consisting of one-syllable words (e.g.
Chinese); agglutinative languages which attach prefixes and suffixes to words (e.g. Finnish,
Esthonian, Turkish, Hungarian); and finally inflected languages, where the words themselves
change through inflexion, such as in case of German, Italian, Polish or Russian languages. It
is very important to mention that languages cannot be placed unequivocally into these
categories, they can be related to a certain group owing to their dominant characteristic
features. The English language is more likely to be related to the isolating languages. On the
contrary, the Hungarian language can be placed among the agglutinative languages, which
means that the grammatical relations are represented by cumulative affixes. Instead of
prepositions, the language uses suffixes, i.e. it inflects. Therefore, considering the structure of
words, the Hungarian language is more difficult than most of the Indo-European languages.
Thence, our words can be rather expanded: endings may appear successively; thus, in the case
of Hungarian, we keep count of more than ten thousand word-forms per word and the number

4
of the feasible suffixed word-forms can be put at five billion2 (Kenesei, 2004). With the help
of the above mentioned method, i.e. by setting the possible word-forms of words as dictionary
elements (lists), it is technically impossible to carry out and operate the Hungarian word-
frequency analysing programs economically. They hit against difficulties − regarding the
storing as well as access time − as far as the capacity of computers is concerned. Accordingly,
such a this technique can only be applied, where the operation of the system is based on the
analysis of morphologic units of the words. The aim of morphology is to deconvolution of the
words to its components, i.e. to morphemes; and to code and label certain grammatical
features of a component.
The automatic coding program of self-reference and negation was developed for the
purpose of accomplishing the above introduced morphological analysis. For example, the
privative form of negation is not taken from the Hungarian dictionary that contains all of
those nouns with privative, but it is found through the morpho-syntactic analysis of the given
expressions.

LINGUISTIC OPERATIONALISATION OF THE ALGORITHMS

Table 1 illustrates the linguistic markers of negation:

Table 1
Operationalisation of the negation algorithm

Negation
Linguistic markers Explicit Implicit
The negative of the verb nincs, nincsenek, sincs,
’to be’ sincsenek
nem, ne, sem, se, dehogy

Negative particles no, not, neither, nor, none

semmi, senki, sehány,
semennyi, semmilyen,
semelyik, semekkora

Pronouns no, none, not any, nothing,

nobody
sehol, sehova, soha, sose,
sehogy, semmire, semminél,
semmihez, semmiképp, stb.

Adverbs nowhere, never, at no time, in

2
In contrast, all the word-forms of the English language can be estimated at half a million.

5
 no way, in no wise,

-tlan, -tlen, -atlen, -etlen,

-talan, -telen, -tlanul, -tlenül,
-talanul, -telenül, - atlanul,
-etlenül

Privatives -less, non-, un-, (deprivative

suffixes)
nélkül, kívül, helyett

Certain postpositional forms without, outside of, except,

instead of

Negation can be explicit, or open (e. g. no, not) and implicit, or hidden (e.g. the privatives: -
less, non-). The former can be identified with the help of a dictionary containing a word-list,
since the latter may be reasoned out from morphological analysis or by examining certain
nominal expressions (e. g. without, except).
However, the self-reference algorithm indicates the incidence rate of the elements of
word-categories with psychological relevance in terms of ’exist as a self’. Therefore, it always
gives signals in case of expressions, in which the first person singular is present (see Table 2):
either it is a verb, a pronoun or a noun with possessive personal suffix (Kiefer, 1998).

Table 2
The operationalisation of the self-reference algorithm

Linguistic markers Self-reference

Verbs in the first person singular: Terminal verbal affixes:

- declarative, present tense, general object -ok, -ek, -ök

- declarative, present tense, 2nd person, definite object -lak, -lek, -alak, -elek
- declarative, present tense, definite object -om, -em, -öm
- declarative, past tense, general object -tam, -tem, -ttam, -ttem, -ottam, -ettem
- declarative, past tense, 2nd person, definite object -talak, -telek, -ttalak, -ttelek, -ottalak
- declarative, past tense, definite object -tam, -tem, -ttam, -ttem, -ottam, -ettem
- conditional, general object -nék, -nák, -enék, -nám, -ném
- conditional, 2nd person, definite object -nálak, -nélek, -análak, - eném
- conditional, definite object -nám, -ném, -anám, -eném
- imperative, general object -jak, -jek, -jam, -jem
- imperative, 2nd person, definite object -jalak, -jelek, -alak, -elek
- imperative, definite object -jam, -jem, -am, -em

6
Pronouns:

- personal- én, engem, tőlem, nekem, velem, általam

- possessive- enyém, enyémből, enyémhez, enyémnél etc.
- reflexive- magam, magamért, magamról, magamhoz

Nouns with possessive personal suffix: Non-terminal nominal suffixes:

- in case of one possession -m, -am, -em, -om, -öm

- in case of more possessions -im, -aim, -eim, -jim, -jeim

RELIABILITY STUDY OF THE NEGATION ALGORITHM

The reliability of the algorithm was tested on a sample of randomly chosen narratives from 30
subjects. The sample text consisted of approximately 10 000 words. The hit rate of the
automatic coding and that of the manual coding were compared. The results show a very high
reliability of the algorithm (see Table 3).

Table 3
Results of the reliability study of the Negation algorithm

Automatic coding Manual coding

Hit False alarm Omission
Number of negations 394 4 3 398
Percentage of hits 99% 1% 1% 100%

VALIDITY STUDIES OF THE NEGATION ALGORITHM

Subjects
74 persons with no prior psychiatric treatment have participated in this study. Participants
were recruited from two age cohorts: young adults (18-35 years old: 40 persons, M=23.04,
SD=3.94) and adults (45-60 years old: 34 persons, M=52.17, SD=3.92). Persons were payed
1000 HUF.

Procedure
Participants have recounted five stories about the following life events: an event during which
a person experienced achievement, loss, fear, and two events with ‘significant others’, one is

7
valenced as negative (“bad story”), and the other as positive (“good story”). In the second part
of the session, personality measures were administered. Recounted narratives were tape-
recorded and later transcribed.

Personality measures
We used the “Emotion control” and “Impulse control for Emotional Stability” scales of the
Big Five Questionnaire (BFQ, Caprara at al., 1993), and the “Meaningfulness” subscale of
the Purpose to Life Scale (Antonovsky, 1987). Short version of the TAT projective test
(Murray, 1938) was also administered.

Hypotheses for the negation

According to our first hypothesis, negative life-occurrences – i.e. fear, anxiety, loss of object,
relational failure – evoke an approach to the experiences whereby accommodation to the
environment and the moral standards come up against difficulties. As a result, repression,
inhibition and alienation of needs and ideas become characteristic. This is reflected in the
increased rate of negation. Consequently, we expected differences in the quantity of negation
according to the topic of life-history narrative, or rather, of its experience-quality.

Table 4
Relative frequency of negation in narratives of five different life episodes

Type of narratives Relative frequency of negation

(N=58) M SD
Story of loss 0.037 0.028
Story of fear 0.039 0.024
Story of a bad relation 0.042 0.021
Story of a good relation 0.022 0.016
Story of achievement 0.028 0.011

Results
We calculated the relative frequency values of the linguistic markers indicating negation,
thereby eliminating the effect of the length of the stories. The result of the one-way analysis
of variance justifies our expectations (see Table 4.). In life-history narratives representing

8
negative life events – loss-experience, fear/anxiety, a bad relation – the linguistic forms of
negation are present in a significantly larger quantity (F(4.54) = 10.185, p < 0.001).
Thereafter, we used the narratives of loss – revealing the most remarkable deviation as
far as the relative frequency of negation is concerned – as a textual basis. And then, by means
of the program, we compared the minimum (low-L, the relative frequency referring to
negation is lower than 0.022) and the maximum (high-H, the relative frequency is higher than
0.046) quartiles of the frequency rates resulting from the negation algorithm to the results of
the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) with the help of two-tailed t-tests. Conforming to our
expectations, the higher rates of negative expressions are typical of those people who see the
world as valueless (see Table 5).
Table 5
Relative frequency of negation in relation to certain TAT variables

TAT need- TAT press

Narration of loss Achievement lack
M SD M SD
Relative frequency of negation is low (L)
(N=18) 2.55 1.5 1.05 0.93
Relative frequency of negation is high (H)
(N=18) 1.5 0.98 2.05 1.30

Table 5 shows that the domination of negative structures in the case of loss-narratives
characterizes those people who lack the state of being energized, persistent, successful action,
the capability of overcoming difficulties, and the ability to turn desires into deeds; namely, the
need for achievement (TAT need-achievement, t(34) = 2.491, p < 0.05). All this is coupled
with the environmental press that causes this lack (TAT need of lack). The person misses
something (family, friends, state) he or she needs for life, for happiness (t(34) = -2.64, p <
0.05). It may also result in a special kind of ’narrowing’: the person experiences inhibition in
achievement, disability and decrease in alternatives; his or her life is full of necessity and
shortage along with his or her human relations getting shallow, and thence, the door is not
open for this person to be happy and to make progress in life.

RELIABILITY STUDY OF THE SELF-REFERENCE ALGORITHM

9
A reliability study of the self-reference algorithm was performed with the same sample and
methodology as with the Negation algorithm. The results shown in Table 6 indicate high
reliability.

Table 6
Reliability results of the Self-reference algorithm

Automatic coding Manual coding

Hit False alarm Omission
Number of negations 968 132 8 976
Percentage of hits 92.2% 13.5% 8.2% 100%

The lower precision index of the self-reference algorithm, in proportion to the negation
algorithm, calls for an explanation. From the morphological analysis we get to know the
grammatical category of a given word and its possible suffixes. Although, the problem is, that
the algorithm performing the analysis examines the words separately, irrespective of the
context; and therefore, it cannot define the role of a certain word in that given context. The
problem caused by polysemic words can be remedied by amending the morphological
analysis with appropriate local syntaxes.

VALIDITY STUDIES OF THE SELF-REFERENCE ALGORITHM

The validity-testing of the self-reference algorithm was carried out similarly to the methods
described in case of the negation algorithm. Concerning self-reference, we also used relative
frequency values for calculation.
Hypotheses
We expected differences in the quantity of self-reference in relation to the topics of the life-
history narratives. We also expected increased self-reference in relation to depressive
dynamics.

Results
Table 7 reveals that the significantly lower self-reference of relational narratives is coupled
with higher self-reference of narratives of achievement and those of fear or anxiety (F(4,54) =
10.605, p < 0.001).

Table 7
Relative frequency of self-reference in relation to narratives of five life episodes

10
 Type of narratives Relative frequency of self-reference
(N=58) M SD
Story of loss 0.100 0.035
Story of fear 0.117 0.035
Story of a bad relation 0.089 0.059
Story of a good relation 0.078 0.043
Story of achievement 0.119 0.041

A possible explanation for this is as follows: a relational narrative – either positive or negative
– that can be connected to a remarkable person who is very important to us manifests itself in
such a treatment of experiences in which a wish for sharing emotions, desires and thoughts as
well as their absence may appear. All this implies in the narrative that the relationship, the
attachment becomes more emphatic than the self. In contrast, the narratives of fear or anxiety
are dire, because we have to overcome the emerging difficulties alone. Solitude, separation
from fellows, lack of connections, or frustrated relations become dominant. Finally, the
narratives of achievement are similar to the narratives of fear in relation to self-reference,
since in the background of our successes there is the delight of ’acting individually’, which is
coupled with autonomy.
Next, we compared the minimum and maximum quartiles (low-L, the relative frequency
of self-reference is less than 0.048 vs. high-H, the frequency rate is higher than 0.111) of the
frequency rates resulting from the bad relation narratives (which showed the biggest deviation
in self-reference) to the indicators of the questionnaire and projective personality measures by
means of two-tailed t-test.

Table 8
Relative frequency of self-reference in “bad narratives” and certain personality-variables

TAT press TAT acting PLS

Narrative of a bad relation loss out meaningfulness
M SD M SD M SD

Relative frequency of self-reference is low

(L) (N=16) 1.85 1.29 2.00 1.47 17.11 2.15

Relative frequency of self-reference is high

(H) (N=16) 2.92 1.32 3.14 1.23 15.46 2.09

11
The results in Table 8 indicate that in a bad story of a ’significant other’ the high self-
reference rate is coupled with an advanced loss-indicator of TAT press (t(30) = -2.163, p <
0.05). Loss represents a state similar to shortage with the difference that loss occurs during the
story. All this is connected with low meaningfulness of Purpose of Life Scale (PLS)
elaborated by Antonovsky (1987), which represents how a certain individual may consider his
or her life to be meaningful, weather he or she would find a purpose for which it is worth
making efforts. People using high self-reference are less devoted to a meaningful life, they do
not regard situations requiring compliance as a challenge, they are not willing to study them
closely and they rarely make sacrifices in these situations (t(30) = 2.167, p < 0.05). The
above mentioned problem is intensified by what manifests itself in the TAT acting out
indicator: those who may be characterized by high self-reference not only refuse going deeply
into situations requiring conformability but they even leave them out entirely (t(30) = -2.232,
p < 0.05). Practically, they react to the anxiety state with a surprising action that is rather
damaging to the situation. A story presenting a bad experience with a significant other
produces a narrative form in which the failure of coping with the situation that requires
compliance or is potentially frustrating manifests itself in the increased occurrences of self-
reference on the text-level.
In the extreme form of this specific experience-pattern the intrapsychic dynamics and
the operation technique typical of depression may be discovered (Abraham, 1911/1988;
Freud, 1917/1997), in the course of which faith in the significance of life is also going to be
questioned. In the event of the given person’s losing his or her feeling of control, leaving the
situation means the only but still accessible way of pursuing control. The most fatal reaction
to frustration is leaving the situation and the last resource of experiencing the control may be
suicide, as a determinate withdrawal from a situation requiring conformability.
The connection between the advanced value of self-reference and depression along with
suicide is confirmed by more empirical results. Bucci and Freedman (1981) by examining five
depressed elderly people’s spontaneous speech got high values concerning the number of the
personal pronoun in the first person singular; while the number of the personal pronouns in
the second and third persons turned out to be less. Weintraub (1981) found higher values of
expressing the self when he compared the speeches of depressed individuals with those of
healthy people. Rude et al. (2004) proved the linguistic self-centredness typical of depressed
students by studying their essays about their deepest emotions and thoughts emerged when
they got into the college. Stirman and Pennebaker (2001) confronted the parlance of nine

12
poets who committed suicide (e.g. Sylvia Plath, Vladimir Mayakovsky) with a matched
control sample (e.g. Denise Levertov, Osip Mandelstam). The usage of the personal pronoun
in the first person singular revealed a higher value in the case of poets who attempted suicide.
They also used fewer references to other people in their poetry across their carreers.
Pennebaker and Lay (2002) analysed Rudolph Giuliani’s 35 press conferences and interviews
between his election as a major of New York City in 1993 and 2001. During his eight years
Giuliani was perceived as undergoing changes in personality as a result of a number of
personal crises (e.g. illness and separation) and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center. Most impressive changes were found in Giuliani’s linguistic style during his personal
crises: increase in the use of the first person singular and the drop in the first person plural
form. It is also consistent with this data that during this period Giuliani used relatively few
references to other people in general. This phenomenon often indicates depression and social
or emotional isolation.
Does the high value of self-reference – irrespective of the content and experience-
structure of the story – conceal the dynamics typical of depression in any case? Table 9 shows
the minimum and maximum values of the self-reference of a story about a good relationship
with a significant other and their correspondences with the data of some survey scales and
some TAT variables.

Table 9
The connection between the relative frequency of self-reference and some personality-
variables

PLS BFQ
Narrative of a good relation meaningfulness emotion control
M SD M SD

Relative frequency of self-reference is low (L)

(N=18) 14.72 2.51 32.38 8.18

Relative frequency of self-reference is high (H)

(N=18) 16.51 2.45 38.64 9.74

As can be seen, the high relative self-reference (more than 0.116) of a good story about a
significant, considerable person reveals the opposite of the above facts: they have greater
emotional stability, they are more capable of dealing with anxiety and emotions (BFQ –
Emotion Control, t(34) = -2.062, p < 0.05). They see situations requiring compliance as

13
rational and full of challenge, they are prepared to study them closely and to make efforts and
sacrifices for them (PLS – meaningfulness, t(34) = -2.145, p < 0.05). Accordingly, higher
self-reference of positive narratives reflects the person’s self-control and conformity to
reality.
The analysis of the achievement-stories conduced to similar results as in case of the
narratives of a good relation (Table 10):

Table 10
The relative frequency of self-reference in relation to the narratives of achievement and
certain TAT variants

TAT needs TAT

Narrative of achievement self-submission autonomy
M SD M SD

Relative frequency of self-reference is low (L)

(N=18) 3.88 1.32 4.16 2.21

Relative frequency of self-reference is high (H)

(N=18) 2.94 1.39 5.44 1.38

Self-reference with high relative frequency (more than 0.131) can be associated with
autonomy, independence of others, control, self-determination and decision making (TAT
autonomy, t(34) = -2.962, p < 0.01). Furthermore, these individuals are lacking in submission
to limitation or to any kind of pressure; they do not accept situations they consider intolerable,
they resist and counteract in such cases (TAT needs self-submission, t(34) = 2.086, p < 0.05).
The connection of autonomy, the independence of others with a high self-reference rate has
already been revealed by Weintraub (1989) as well.
As far as the narratives of a good relation or the narratives of achievement are
concerned, the statistical results confirm that high self-reference may link not only to the
intrapsychic dynamics of depression, but it may refer to self-control, to conformity to reality
and to autonomy as well, irrespective of the content of the narratives.

CONCLUSION
In this study we provided evidence that the coding programs, which take the characteristic
features of the Hungarian language into account and rest upon morpho-syntactical analysis,
are capable of revealing fine oscillations of intrapsychic processes. The algorithm for the
automatic coding of self-reference and negation meets the requirements of validity and

14
reliability. Automatic coding enables the studying of large corpora on the one hand and
further refinements in the coding on the other. For instance, ambivalent and abstract negations
may entail different psychological dynamics. Just as self-reference may have a different
meaning when the ego is an active agent as opposed to a passive recipient. These distinctions
can be captured linguistically and introduced into the coding.
Finally, most of the previous studies on negation and self-reference dealt with people
exhibiting extreme behaviour, e.g. depressed, anxious people or those being in crisis and
contemplating suicide. The linguistic markers of their discourse therefore can be seen as
reflecting pervasive and enduring psychological processes. Effects of the textual content
could therefore be easily disregarded. However, our results with healthy individuals highlight
that while the frequency of expressions used in speaking or writing is relevant for
psychological process, language use even in life stories is contextual. Consequently, the
analysis of healthy people’s words (sentences and stories) is only possible with a full
knowledge of the aims and the content represented by the speaker.

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