A Transitivity Analysis of Mental Health Awareness Discourse on Instagram

Abstract

Discourse is dynamic, varied, and tailored to match the communication needs of an environment. In Nigeria, the need to communicate mental health awareness (MHA) is imminent; thus, the advent of social media discourse allows mental health awareness content creators to reach a wider audience. The study aims to identify the predominant MHA themes in two purposively selected Instagram platforms, Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) and She Writes Woman (SWW), and to analyze the recurrent linguistic resources in the selected MHA texts. The study uses the transitivity framework for descriptive-qualitative and qualitative data analysis. The findings show three major themes: diagnosis, treatment/therapy, and prevention/recovery. It also shows the material process as the most frequently used transitivity in mental health awareness advocacy on both Instagram pages. This suggests that the triggers of mental health issues are majorly related to the verbs ‘doing’ and ‘happening’, from diagnosis and treatment processes to recovery.