Assessing the language of mental health

Mental health literacy is comparatively low in Southeastern Asia, and it is likely to be highly stigmatized. In this study, we consider how mental health is linguistically constructed in terms of collocates by both the news media and lay people in Malaysia, with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of mental health in Malaysian ideologies. Specifically, we intend to determine the characteristics, qualities, and features that are attributed to mental health in the two different domains (news articles vs. public forum). To achieve the aims of the study, two different corpora will be built: newspapers from the New Straits Times and posts about mental health sourced from Lowyat.net—a popular Malaysia's online community. We will use Sketch Engine to identify the content words associated with the term mental health. It is hoped that this study could offer insights into the specific language choices used in the news media and among lay people in relation to mental health in Malaysia. It is important to ensure that language use to communicate mental health is respectful, sensitive, and empowering for individuals and families who use mental health services.