Linguistic analysis of suicide notes, two case studies

A suicide note is any kind of text that is left behind before a person commits suicide or intends to commit suicide. These texts have been analyzed by linguists and psychologists among others to get a better understanding of the suicide act. The present paper first reviews how these notes have been analyzed . In the second part of the paper, four Farsi suicide notes are presented and based on Prokofyeva (2013) are analyzed. According to her, a clear statement of reasoning should be present in genuine suicide notes either with a direct statement or an implied one. The ‘clear statement’ of why the suicide takes place is an integral part of almost every genuine suicide note Prokofyeva (2013) examined, as it is an aim of its author to explain why such a decision has been made. As for the structure of suicide notes, each note consists of the following components: a- Form of address (more often someone specific) b - Introduction) c- Culmination/body ( d - Conclusion/closing words (farewell; signature; post-scriptum; ). The analysis of Farsi notes which vary between 5 to18 words, shows that all of them state clearly the reason for committing suicide and express their last feelings (the first note expresses anger and puts the blame on someone, the second note expresses relief and forgiveness while the last one expresses hatred.) Considering the four components of a note, the first note which is very short, only has the introduction component. Other notes which are longer, have three components: introduction, body, conclusion or form of address. The ‘clear statement’ of why the suicide takes place is common to all the short notes analyzed. This paper emphasizes on the need to build a corpus of Farsi suicide notes for future studies in this interdisciplinary area.