Research exploring linguistic markers in individuals with depression has demonstrated that language usage can serve as an indicator of mental health. This study investigates the impact of discussion topic as context on linguistic markers and emotional expression in depression, using a Reddit dataset to explore interaction effects. Contrary to common findings, our sentiment analysis revealed a broader range of emotional intensity in depressed individuals, with both higher negative and positive sentiments than controls. This pattern was driven by posts containing no emotion words, revealing the limitations of the lexicon based approaches in capturing the full emotional context. We observed several interesting results demonstrating the importance of contextual analyses. For instance, the use of 1st person singular pronouns and words related to anger and sadness correlated with increased positive sentiments, whereas a higher rate of present-focused words was associated with more negative sentiments. Our findings highlight the importance of discussion contexts while interpreting the language used in depression, revealing that the emotional intensity and meaning of linguistic markers can vary based on the topic of discussion.

翻译：针对抑郁个体语言标记的研究表明，语言使用可作为心理健康的指示器。本研究利用Reddit数据集探讨讨论主题作为语境对抑郁语言标记及情感表达的影响，并分析其交互作用。与常见研究发现相异，我们的情感分析显示抑郁个体表现出更广泛的情感强度范围，其消极与积极情感均高于对照组。该模式主要由不含情感词汇的帖子驱动，揭示了基于词典的方法在捕捉完整情感语境方面的局限性。我们观察到若干体现语境分析重要性的有趣结果：例如，第一人称单数代词及与愤怒、悲伤相关词汇的使用与积极情感增强相关，而更高频次的当下聚焦词汇则与更强烈的消极情感相关联。本研究结果凸显了在解读抑郁语言时讨论语境的重要性，表明语言标记的情感强度与意义可能随讨论主题的变化而改变。