Psychological Profiling in Gothic and Detective Fiction: A Forensic Linguistic Exploration of Deception and Reality Distortion

Abstract

Psychological profiling in fiction uncovers the underlying drivers of characters’ actions, revealing the intricate web of emotions, experiences, and thoughts, eventually shaping their journeys and interactions as well as the story’s emotional depth. This research applies forensic stylistics and van Dijk’s SCM to discover deception and reality distortion in “The Spinner’s Tale” and “Between Clay and Dust”, investigating how language, sentence structure and speech styles are used to influence stories and real life. By using both qualitative and quantitative methods, the results from AntConc tag frequency analysis demonstrate that cognitive biases, psychological stress and society shape the growth of characters. Findings elucidate deception and cognitive distortion in both Gothic and detective fiction, asserting that language can change how readers perceive and interpret characters. Thus, the study concludes that language does not mere tell stories but also constructs complex psychological ideas, whereby the narrative techniques direct how readers would perceive themselves, the world and how stories can be turned. The findings have important implications in for both forensic linguistics and literary analysis in pursuits of psychology and power dynamics. Future research should include the integration of these frameworks in other literary genres in order to build on the insights into the deception and reality distortion.