Influencers’ Textual Strategies in Constructing Popular Psychology Term Meanings: A Faircloughian Critical Discourse Analysis

Andi Wardatul Wahidah Lufini

Authors

Andi Wardatul Wahidah Lufini Universitas Hasanuddin, Makassar

Keywords:

Fairclough, critical discourse analysis, popular psychology, social media, textual dimension

Abstract

Background: Popular psychology terms circulate widely in Indonesian-language social media, where influencers and content creators fill in their meanings. Purpose: This study examines how influencers and content creators construct the meaning of popular psychology terms that already exist in English vocabulary. Methods: Applying Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis as presented by Eriyanto (2001), restricted to the textual dimension, it analyses 59 Indonesian-language social media transcripts containing ten terms: healing, burnout, anxiety, narcissistic/narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), toxic, gaslighting, overthinking, trigger, trauma, and inner child. Representation is analysed at the clause, clause-combination, and sentence-sequence levels, while relations and identity are analysed across whole transcripts. Results: Relational processes predominate in the core clause (55.9%), presenting the terms as states or types of person. Meaning is delimited less by formal definition (22.0%) than by contrast and relabelling of lay words (30.5%), advice (37.3%), and explanations of cause (37.3%), and is packaged in lists of signs (23.7%) that audiences can check against their own experience. Creators address the audience directly (66.1%), mostly through imperatives (45.8%) rather than explicit obligation (16.9%), and appear as explainers (42.4%), survivors (23.7%), or advisers (23.7%); audiences are positioned as symptom-bearers (33.9%) and fellow experiencers (33.9%). Conclusion: These patterns suggest that the terms work as tools of recognition and sorting rather than as defined concepts, that authority rests on experience and closeness rather than clinical standing, and that causes and remedies tend to be placed in the individual. Discursive and social practice are left for a later stage

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