Psychopath’s Semantic Techniques in The Fear Files Youtube Channel
on
e-Journal of Linguistics
Available online at https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eol/index
Vol. 18, No. 1, January 2023, pages: 11--23
Print ISSN: 2541-5514 Online ISSN: 2442-7586
https://doi.org/10.24843/e-jl.2024.v18.i01.p02
Psychopath’s Semantic Techniques in The Fear Files Youtube Channel
Nuriyati Nahdiyah, Rohmani Nur Indah
Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang, Indonesia, Email: nuriyatinahdiyah @gmail.com
Article info
Received Date:3 Maret 2023
Accepted Date:31 Maret 2023
Published Date:31 January 2024
Keywords:*
semantic techniques, psychopaths speech, language of psychopaths
Abstract*
The thoughts and the way psychopaths deliver their speech are definitely dissimilar to normal person. There are specific techniques they used in their verbal speech. This study analyzes the semantic techniques in the utterances of psychopaths during interviews on their experience. The method of the study is descriptive qualitative research. The data were in the form of utterances of the seven psychopaths and serial killers in The Fear Files channel. The data were classified using Timor and Weiss framework in analyzing the semantic techniques. The results show the semantic techniques covering vocabulary, figurative language, positive and negative connotation, anaphora and repetition. The most category used by the subjects is repetition followed by anaphora and vocabulary. The least used are positive and negative connotation and figurative language. Each of the psychopath represents the characteristics such as the expression of irresponsibility, compulsive lying, expression of impulsive behavior, manipulative speech, lack of empathy, poor behavior control. Understanding the semantic techniques applied in the utterances of psychopaths can have important implications for our understanding of the disorder, as well as for diagnosis and communication skills. This finding also contributes to comprehending the language as psychopaths as complex issues related to mental health and wellbeing.
Understanding the utterances of psychopath is a complex issue, but from the perspective of language particularly on semantics, it is potential to uncover the hidden facts including their crime motives and background of mental health issues. It reflects that human thought is very complicated, abstract, cannot be guessed unless we express it well then someone will understand what is in our mind (Mitchell, 2021). Expressing thoughts, opinions, the common human emotions with the one that is not normal such as psychopath is of course different. This research focused on human thoughts that are not normal, which is the psychopath’s utterances or verbal expressions.
Psychopaths are known to use language in a highly manipulative and strategic way, often exploiting linguistic nuances to achieve their goals. Therefore, the thoughts of a psychopath and the thoughts of ordinary people will definitely be very much different. We do not know what is in the minds of a psychopath without directly asking. Even the opposite, the thoughts of normal
people would not be understood by psychopath (Drayton et al., 2018; Viding & McCrory, 2019). Thoughts that are far from the common sense and full of chaos usually happen to psychopaths. How the psychopath describes something, someone or the way they thought is not going to be the same with the common people.
The existence of psychopaths is frequently not recognized by many people. Most of them have anti-social personalities which make them have relationship that is not harmonious and does not last long (Kendler, 2006). It is easy for the psychopath to do the acts of violence. Most of them does not think the effect after doing it to the others. Unconsciously, the psychopaths have their own habits in speaking which not many people realize that they are psychopaths (Drayton et al., 2018). Furthermore, studying the language of psychopaths may also shed light on the underlying mental health issues that contribute to their behavior. For example, psychopaths may exhibit patterns of distorted thinking, such as black-and-white thinking, that are reflected in their language use. By analyzing these patterns, researchers and mental health professionals can gain a deeper understanding of the complex neurological and psychological factors that contribute to psychopathic behavior.
In this case, the form of thoughts can be described through verbal expressions. Timor and Weiss (2008) stated that when someone describes themselves or the views around them, the speech discloses the content of the message explicitly and implicitly, sometimes beyond the listener's consciousness or the speaker. Verbally conveyed messages are not necessarily hidden messages or messages with far different purposes. Human tendency in conveying messages can be a crucial clue in understanding the perception of his/her social world and its problems. Unlike the implicit message that the speaker conveys, implicit messages are harder to predict, the real accurate message that describes the real meaning that wanted the speaker to be delivered. For example, by analyzing the semantic patterns and language choices used by a psychopath, researchers and mental health professionals can gain insight into their motivations, cognitive processes, and emotional responses. By examining the specific words and phrases used in their utterances, it may be possible to identify patterns that reveal their true intentions, such as a lack of empathy or a desire for power and control.
The previous research that scrutinizes the language of psychopaths is Ulfa (2020) who analyzes the verbal section that is uttered by the psychopath, which is through semantic and morphology. She does the research to find many kinds of speech techniques used by psychopaths using semantic and morphology techniques. A few kinds that use semantic techniques are vocabulary, repetition, figurative language, positive and negative connotation, and anaphora. The used morphology techniques are nominalization, passivation, first-person plural and second-person plural. As for this study, this research focuses on the verbal language research of psychopath and taking semantic techniques to be analyzed from YouTube video with the names of "The Fear Files" channel. The framework of Timor and Weiss (2008) is used as the only theoretical framework of this study to analyze the psychopath and whether they have the tendency in expressing themselves during the interview.
Current research has tried to uncover the characteristics of the psychopaths from several view-points including the maxim used in their utterance, their behavior and narrative styles, also their non-verbal communication. Savira (2019) analyzed the way the psychopathic character did the violation of maxim in the movie "Gone Girl". Kornelia (2021) discusses psychopathic behavior in the Emelie film by Richard Raymond and Harry Herbeck. She found four common psychopaths are namely victim, artist, evil psychopaths and professional psychopath. The psychopath's effect that the main role has are; not respecting each other, not being afraid of his behavior, not having the sense of responsibility, and not regret killing. Gawda (2021) identifies
how to differentiate the narrative styles of people with psychopathic personality traits based on linguistic indicators. The result shows there are two configurations of language features associated with the high level of psychopathic deviate patterns namely demonstrative-digressiveegocentric-emotional-dogmatic, and reserved-focused on the topic-repetitive. Harper (2022) concerns how the psychopaths can detect the victim's vulnerabilities by understanding their body language The illustrated psychopaths can accurately identify vulnerability and submissiveness by reading facial and body language cues and identifying the person as a 'victim' based on the gait.
From the several previous studies above, it is clear that there is still a need for more empirical findings concerning how the psychopaths speak about the result of their thoughts about themselves, other people, their pasts, and how they express everything in general. Therefore, this research focuses on two things. First, the semantic techniques of verbal language that psychopaths utter in YouTube. Second, the tendencies of psychopaths and serial killers in using semantic techniques to express themselves in the interview videos.
The aim of the study is to understand and identify the phrasal semantics of the interview of the psychopaths and to describe how the psychopaths express themselves in the interview videos. Therefore, the method of the study is qualitative descriptive research since the used data are the utterances produced by the psychopaths. The study used psycholinguistic approach with Timor and Weiss (2008) as the theoretical framework.
The data of this study are from the videos taken from the YouTube channel called The Fear Files. Meanwhile the data are utterances from the result of observation of the interview videos. The title of the video is “4 extremely disturbing interviews with the psychopaths” (uploaded May 5, 2021), and “3 extremely disturbing interviews with the serial killer” (uploaded May 14, 2021).
There are several steps in collecting the data. First, the researchers downloaded the videos in the ‘The Fear Files’ YouTube channel. Then, they observed the utterances of psychopaths in the interview videos. To help understanding the utterances of the data then they made the transcript of the psychopath’s utterances. The final step is data display.
The analysis of the data is done by classifying the utterances based on the first problem of the research which is the types of the semantic techniques of the psychopaths. In this case, the researchers analyzed the verbal speeches of psychopaths in the two interview videos, creating a chart with the results of analysis from semantic techniques by using Timor and Weiss (2008). The researchers also coded down the category of data into the semantic technique which consist; Vocabulary (V), Figurative Language (FL), Connotation (positive and negative), Anaphora (A) and Repetition (R). Second, elaborate the analysis of the psychopath analysis. In term of how the semantic techniques are used. The final stage is making conclusion.
The data of the research are the utterances of the total ten psychopaths in the three videos YouTube named ‘The Fear Files’ channel. Aside from the psychopaths, there is a video containing the interview of the serial killers with the interviewer. The serial killer behaves almost like a psychopath. The form of the data which were utterances or phrases or sentences was transcribed into sentences by transcribing the videos.
The first video of the interview with the psychopath with the title “4 extremely disturbing interview with the psychopaths” consist of four men that seems in their mid-thirty. The first four men was wearing formal suit with no ties and semi-casual clothes. The psychopath men were a molester to his stepdaughter.
The second video of the interview with the serial killer with the title of “3 extremely disturbing interview with the serial killer” consist of three men. The three men seem to be in their thirties and forties. The target of murder of these men was unknown or random people, relatives of the family and college girls.
The first man tells the incident about the beginning of how he molested his stepdaughter. He also kind of abuses his daughter. He sees his stepdaughter ass the perfect mate to do sexual thing, which is sex. He only cares about the sex. The first men told his story as if he did not feel disturbed recalling the incident. In the video, it can be seen that he was calm. He did not have any expression shows. His eyes seem empty.
The second men were an abusive father to his son. His appearances were just like any other men in their mid-thirties. He wore sunglasses and casual clothes. In this case, he was abusing his son and his wife. He makes up stories about his son, so he appears to be not getting well with the father to other people. He also beating and raping his own wife if she did not do like what he wants. He does not have any expression and his eyes also seem empty. It seems he does have any hand gestures. He seems to be a bit guilty for beating his son, but not his wife.
The third men were a molester to a 23 years old woman. He wore a semi- formal suit. The man seems to be younger than the previous men in the interview. He does not do any of hand gestures. His face and eyes were empty of emotions. He had done work in the same company of the wife as a disguised man two months prior. He pretends to be interested in the sale motor of the husband to visit the house. He intended to molest the woman and planning to suicide after. It seems he does not have a stable emotional condition considering he cries after the woman refuses to stab him with the butcher knife.
It seems the fourth men were to be in the mid of his thirties. Just like the previous men in the interview, he also wore a semi-formal suit without a tie. He does not do any of the hand gestures, only the face is shown in the interview. He seems telling the story with no problem. He seems relaxed and calm mannered. In his case, the victims were young boys with close relations to him and one female. He molested without them realizing it. He manipulates all of his victims to be able to molest them. The total of his victims are 1250 males and one female. He has already molested young boys for over nine years.
The fifth men were a serial killer. His name was Gerard John Shaffer junior. He was suspected as a murderer when he served as a sheriff’s deputy and imprisoned in 1973. He was suspected for murdering two people. However, he was suspected of murdering many more. He frequently appealed against his conviction but privately boasted verbally and writing of killing more than 30 women and girls. He was stabbed to death in his prison cell in December 1995. In the interview video, his face is empty of any facial expression and so were his eyes. He looks like in the middle of his forties in the interview. Also, his hand gesture does not appear either. It seems he wears a prison uniform.
The sixth man were named Edmund Emil Kemper III, an American serial killer and a necrophile, a person who likes to have sexual activities with corpses, killed 10 people, including his paternal grandparents and mother. He was given a nickname as a co-ed killer because most of his victims are female college students. It was unfortunate for him because he has a high height (6 feet 9 inch) and IQ which is 145. In the interview, it seems he was emotional most of the time, he cried and regretting the choice of killing his mother and have a lot of arguments with her.
The seventh men named Oddie Woodtule. He was an American drifter and serial killer. With his accomplice named Lee Lucas Toole killed about six people which is later both made a confession letter and died because of cirrhosis at the age of 49 years old. Throughout the interview, he seems to have unstable emotions. He often laughed hysterically and then his
15 expression back to be a serious one. This emotion repeats a few times in his interview video. He also looks like to be regretting his past actions. He also wears the prison’s uniform.
In this section, the researchers found 34 data related to the speech techniques of psychopaths in the “The Fear Files” channel YouTube video. The whole data will be listed and can be seen in the appendix. The researcher minimized it into 13 data to avoid saturated data based on the kinds of psychopath's speech using semantic techniques according to Timor and Weiss (2008). The researcher turned down the category of the data into the kinds of semantic techniques. The summary of the findings is represented in figure 1.
-
■ Repetition (35%)
-
■ Anaphora (21%)
-
■ Vocabulary (21%)
-
■ Connotation (15%)
-
■ Figurative Language (8%)
Figure 1. Semantic techniques of psychopaths in the interview videos
-
a. Repetition
Repetitions, whether within the same expression or in synonymous expressions, have various functions, which include emphasizing the expression and reinforcing their validity as well as unifying the text (Halliday & Hasan in Timor & Weiss, 2008). There are many repetitions that emerged in the data, one of the examples is in datum 1 as follow.
When I was the punisher I was the, I was the one who decided punishment over the children
I was the one who spanked the children; I was the one who punished the children (M.1).
The sentences are produced by the first men. He was a molester to his stepdaughter. He describes the molestation like it was a normal activity. He does not feel disturbed about telling it in front of the interviewer. In his perspective, he was appropriate to educate and give punishment to his stepdaughter if she made mistakes. Also, he thinks that what he was doing to his stepdaughter was considered normal. He also shows repetition in the sentence ‘I was the one who’ to emphasize and deliver a message that he is the suspect who abuse and molest his stepdaughter. In this datum, it comes to the conclusion that it can be classified into figurative language, positive connotation and repetition.
The first man in the interview told the incident in detail and relaxed manners as if it was a normal incident to be told. It was a well-detailed explanation although he has some sentences repeated. He also made a few eye contacts and used a few hand gestures with the interviewer shows that he was not nervous or felt any guilt.
The similar typology of repetition is found in datum 8, datum 9, and datum 13. The function of repetition was to justify the act of crimes by him to his stepdaughter. Most of the
datum mentioned above is for the psychopaths to emphasize their statement and justify the act that was mentioned in the sentence.
The other function of repetition to reinforce their validity. Different from emphasizing the expression, the structure of repetition in reinforcing their validity is in one sentence or clause such as in datum 2 (I would I would), datum 4 (turn my stales turn myself), datum 10 (If only If only). Based on the many data mentioned, the psychopath has failed to form clear sentence where the repetition does not appear.
-
b. Anaphora
Anaphora is using general term to relate to a word or concept that was mentioned or hinted previously. This usage enables the speaker not to call things by their name but merely to hint at them (Richards et al. in Timor & Weiss, 2008). The example of anaphora is in datum 3 as follow
I will have the perfect sexual mate for sexual purposes anything else didn’t matter it was sex that was it. I didn’t care about it really, honestly, I didn’t love the child I wanted the child for my own purposes (M.1).
The data above shows that the psychopath does not consider his stepdaughter as his own child. He views her as an adult who is perfect as his partner for sexual activities. He does not care about his daughter, all that matters to him is sex only. The way he pronounced the phrase 'perfect sexual mate' were really slow, as if he tried to emphasize each word. He says he really sees his stepdaughter as a partner for sex only. The word ‘sex’ in the sentence above shows how he views his anaphora regarding his sexual activities with his stepdaughter. Before the word sex, there are two proper nouns that conceal the real meaning of the concept, which is 'it'. The word 'it' refers to the activities the psychopath does with his stepdaughter. The word is 'sex'. In his mind, there is a possibility that the activity that he does with his stepdaughter is not violating any norm or law.
-
c. Vocabulary
Vocabulary is one of the indications which can show the pattern of someone’s language. The choice of words testifies to the speaker’s inner preoccupation with their issue. The content of the expressions points out the speaker’s feelings about the situation they faced (Ulfa, 2020). The example of vocabulary is in datum 4 as follow.
Uh, and there was actually one instance where i went to the police station myself to turn my stales turn myself in, and the police stated the officer at the desk told me to go home and sleep off my drunk (M.2).
The sentence above was from the second men. He was an abusive man to his son and his wife. He was an abuser and molester to his son and his wife. In this sentence that he uttered, the phrase 'sleep off my drunk' can be concluded in as a vocabulary. The phrase ‘sleep off my drunk’ seems to have meaning that the psychopath should just go home and relieve the alcohol that he has drunk. While uttering the sentence above, the psychopath does not seem to be in a hurry. He says it slow like he is telling a story. He did not do any hand gestures either. He only glancing a few times to the camera installed in the room and to the interviewer. Although the researcher does not know the reason, it seems he does not feel comfortable facing the camera. Instead, he looks at the interviewer most of the time.
Psychopaths do not hesitate to use some kind of vulgar, harsh, or taboo vocabulary since they have committed crimes many times and do not feel guilty after doing it. In datum 10, the psychopath utters the word 'cage' instead of saying it directly as prison. In datum 11, he also said 'a tribute' after they cut off the head of the victims, in which all of them are young women and girls. From the mentioned datum above, it can be seen that psychopathic individual does not have
17 any sympathy or conscience, they failed to have any normal emotions like any other normal human. The same also goes with datum 5 (gun consciousness).
In general, among psychopaths, since they were involved in many crimes, certainly their vocabularies also consisted of that. However, in this study, the vocabularies are not too deep or taboo into criminal activities, such as; sleep off my drunk (datum 4). The meaning behind those phrases is to get rid of the effect because of the liquor in his sleep. The same goes with datum 5 'my buttons', which means doing things to create such a strong emotional reaction from someone, especially in negative emotions such as anger, irritation or exasperation. In this case, someone that is mentioned is the psychopath himself.
-
d. Connotation
Connotation covers the positive or negative connotations that indicate the underlying communicative messages that the expression conveys beyond its literal or objective meaning (Leach in Timor & Weiss, 2008). The example of connotations in this study is datum 12 as follow.
Still I'm like a puppet on a string and I entertain her she knows all my buttons and I dance like a puppet (M.6).
This sentence was said by an American man and a serial killer. His name was Edmund Emil Kemper III. In this sentence, there are three kinds of semantic techniques which are vocabulary, figurative language and negative connotation. The psychopath describes himself by saying ‘I’m like a puppet on the string’ phrase. His phrase saying ‘I’m like a puppet on the string’ is describing that he sees himself as a puppet that was controlled by his mother which can be included in figurative language as simile. Edmund was often having arguments with his mother when she was alive. His mother knew all of his crime that was his owns vocabulary for the phrase ‘my buttons’. Edmund also said ‘I dance like the puppet’ is he, Edmund obeys all his mother’s words and behave according to what she asks him to in their one of their arguments. In the sentence above, Edmund said it in monotone and flat. It was lifeless. He seems to be remembering the incident as it was showing in the video a home that have the possibility of Edmund's home back then. He does not use any hand gestures at the time.
-
e. Figurative Language
Figurative language is one kind of aspects in semantic technique which consist of the poetic languages to dramatize the story. It also intended to convince the listener about the speaker’s narration. When the speaker uses a kind of figurative language such as metaphors or similes, it makes the utterances more concrete, more extreme and more emotionally persuasive (Katz in Timor & Weiss, 2008). The example of figurative language is in datum 13 as follow.
It hurts because I’m not a lizard I’m not from under a rock (M.6).
The sentence Edmund said above is referring to the feeling he described before killing his mother. The sentence above contains figurative language, negative connotation and repetition. The use of figurative language above can be considered as metaphor with the phrase 'I'm not a lizard' and 'I'm not from under a rock. By saying those phrases, Edmund feels like he is heartless and guilty for killing his mother. He refers those phrases to himself. In the interview, it can be seen while saying the sentence above Edmund was emotional and almost cried. He explained it in detail about the incident regarding the killing of his mother. During the interview, Edmund does not look to the camera that record him instead to the interviewer in front of him. His emotion was not sable in the whole interview when he was mentioning his mother and the arguments they had. His intonations were not flat as he was clenched his fist for the second time in the interview.
Based on the data, figurative language is the least from every other category in semantic techniques. It consists of datum 1, datum 12 and datum 13. Datum 1 (the punisher), datum 12 (I’m like a puppet on a string, I dance like a puppet) and datum 13 (I’m not a lizard, I’m not from under a rock) are all figurative language in the form of metaphor and similes.
The second section discusses how the psychopaths and serial killers answer, react to the questions given by the interviewer and how they behaved while telling their incidents and crimes during the interviews. The analyzed videos consist of seven males in their thirties until forties who have committed murder, molester, and serial-killers. The victims are various, from children, teen boys and girls, middle aged women, young women and men. The subjects of the researcher's analysis in this section are the seven men in the video interviews.
Each of the psychopaths performed a different type of psychopath. Therefore, each person of this study represents different type of characteristics. In this section, the researcher sorted the data based on the characteristics of psychopath from the first man until the seven men from both of the interview videos. The emerged characteristics are; lack of empathy, the expression of irresponsibility, expression of impulsive behavior, poor behavior control, compulsive lying, and manipulative speech. Each of the psychopaths represents the type of different characteristics mentioned above. In this section, the researcher starts with the first subject until the last subject of the research.
-
a. The expression of irresponsibility
Psychopaths are irresponsible because nothing is ever their fault. Someone else or the world is always to blame for all of their problems. It will make sense if you understand that psychopaths think of themselves as perfect being (Verstappen, 2011). The first men of the subjects are fitted to represent the characteristic of ‘irresponsibility’. During the interview, he said ‘I will have the perfect sexual mate for sexual purposes, anything else didn’t matter. It was sex that was it. I didn’t care about really, honestly, I didn’t love the child. I wanted the child for my own purposes (datum 3)'. It meant that he only cares about the 'sex' and not the child.
This man can be considered as egocentric impulsive psychopath based on the level according to the news (Anggara, 2021). They act according to the will of their heart without thinking whether they disservice other people or not. It is believed that they have complicated personalities to understand, manipulative, just wanted to benefit themselves, have high ego and do not like to be committed.
-
b. Compulsive lying
Psychopaths have solved this dilemma through their premier weapon, lies. Without empathy, shame, and remorse they are free to lie as often and as outrageously. For the psychopath, lying is as easy and natural as breathing. It is why they often pass polygraphs. They do not register the physiological reactions that non-psychopaths would when lying. They are so good at lying that they can fool trained psychiatrists and even other psychopaths (Verstappen, 2011). The characteristic of 'compulsively lying' are fitted for the second men in the first interview videos. He has been lying to everyone else besides his family members, and more importantly, he has done it for over 25 years. He said 'and I would say that I say that because of how long I have fooled society and how long I’ve fooled people. I’ve been fooling people for well over 25 years (M.2).
Based on what he has done to society and his family members, the second man can be considered the con artist type of psychopath. This kind of psychopath does not care about money. He was good at making up lies, charming, articulate and convincing. He also does not care about love and affection (Verstappen, 2011).
-
c. Expression of impulsive behavior
An impulsive behavior is when you act quickly with no thought to the consequences. There is nothing on your mind beyond exact moment (Pietrangelo, 2020). The psychopath's impulsive behavior makes sense in light of their megalomania. In their world, whatever they want now is good, and whatever they do not want is bad (Verstappen, 2011). The characteristics of the third men are fitted to impulsive behavior. During the interview he said “..and I grabbed the blade and put the point of it right in front of my solar plexus I mean my sternum” (datum 6). And also “She just it wasn’t in her to kill someone and then I got angry because I had planned on suicide that day and I was angry because she wouldn’t do it” (datum 7).
The third men can be concluded as a secondary psychopath. People with the secondary psychopath have difficulties to conceal their emotions. Their looks like irritable, their emotion is easy to explode, had severe bad anger. With such nature, they stated as sociopath. The journal scientific studies PLOS One stated that secondary psychopaths tend to act reckless, impulsive, easily anxious, aggressive, and break and hurt themselves because of erratic feelings (Anggara, 2021). This man had severe bad anger emotions to himself because the victim failed to obey his order to stab him with the blade he gave her. He was angry at himself and his emotions exploded and turned into sadness. Finally, he cried because he cannot take his own life.
-
d. Manipulative speech
Together with the extraordinary ability to lie, psychopaths also can manipulate others for their benefit. They have spent the time to study us, normal human. They knew how to push and control our emotions against us. Psychopaths also learn how their personalities can have traumatizing effects on the personalities of non-psychopaths. Like an electric eel that stuns its prey with an electroshock, the inhuman personality of psychopath and uncanny ability to manipulate can psychologically stun their targeted victims (Verstappen, 2011).
The fourth men said in his interview ‘The child would feel such a bond of trust that the child would decide okay I’d like to go to sleep and I’d manipulate the child and lay them across the seat and molest the child with my hand on his penis by forcing my hand on his penis'. In this case, the victim of the fourth man was his nephew and other teen boys and girls. He lured his victims by manipulating them after gaining their trust for his interest and satisfaction. He raped and molested his nephew for over nine years.
The fourth men are fitted to be called as charismatic psychopath. This type of psychopath is probably a psychopath that easily manipulates other people with their charisma. According to the type, they are charismatic, have such a strong influence to manipulate others. On common cases, charismatic psychopaths can have high social or political position in their life. However, although they are clever and charismatic, they often lie to trap others into their pitfalls (Anggara, 2021).
-
e. Lack of Empathy
Empathy is the ability to experience the feelings and emotions expressed by others within oneself. Psychopaths have no empathy, and as a result, they are neither truly human, nor truly alive. Psychopaths realize that they are different and should act as everyone to be accepted into society. They learn to mimic what they see others do, but they can never understand why they should act this way (Verstappen, 2011).
The fifth men committed many crimes of killing people. During the interview, he said it: ' They see the deliberate stranger and see it as entertainment. Ted was real he was a real man’ (datum 9). It can be seen from the stated datum that he regards normal people as an entertainment to play with. Whether he killed them or not, he does not care whatever happened to the victims.
The fifth men were concluded to malevolent psychopath. Malevolent psychopaths are known in another name as Sociopath, Anti-Social Personality Disorder. They are the real life nightmare involved in crimes. They are a natural killer. They target the most vulnerable ones in society, such as old women, the disabled, and children (Verstappen, 2011). Therefore, the description of the malevolent psychopath fits for him.
-
f. Poor Behavior Control
Many of the psychopaths exhibit excellent self-control by having to pretend to be 'normal' for the rest of their lives. The lack of self-control comes to play when the megalomania causes them to do and behave exactly as they please whenever they have an urge. Megalomania is an obsession with the exercise of power, especially in the domination of others (Verstappen, 2011). The sixth and seventh men have the same characteristic that can represent their crimes: poor behavior control. The psychopaths are portrayed as unaffected and cold despite the horrendous nature of their crimes (Gullhaugen et al. 2018).
The sixth man cannot control his desires, and his emotions are easily triggered. He said, 'I said she’s got to die and I’ve got to die’ (see on the appendix). ‘It hurts because I’m not a lizard I’m not from under a rock (datum 13). His emotions changed to becoming sad and cried after mentioning the killing of his mother and their arguments. He had to kill his mother so he could be free from obeying his mother's orders. He also had thoughts to kill himself so that there will be any more victims.
The seventh men also cannot control his emotions. During the interview, the emotions changed after telling the past crimes he committed. The seventh men were sometimes laughing hysterically as well.
The sixth men can be concluded as psychopath under other's influence. Psychopath of this type do not act on their own accord but because of the influence of others. Although under the influence of others, these kinds of psychopath are still dangerous. Science Daily explains the old nature of this type of psychopath can be around us. The influence of people with higher positions than the culprit, made psychopaths of this type do anything they have ordered because of the feeling of fear. This negative response will cause psychopathic traits without realizing it (Anggara, 2021).
The seventh man can be considered as Primary psychopaths. A science journal published in The Royal Society Publishing stated that people with primary psychopathy can hide their emotions very well. They tend to be clever and have charisma in their surrounding environment. They do not have any fear and worry becomes the main characteristic. They also have no innocence, difficult to have any regret, and have a true narcissistic personality (Anggara, 2021).
This study performed novelty in the approach to understand psychopath people from the pattern of the semantic techniques applied in their speech. While some other studies concern the investigation of psychopath people from the view point of psychiatric practice through the reconstruction of the concept of medicalization for them (Showalter, 2019). In addition, the current research finding took different way from Li et al. (2022) that design unbiased prompts to evaluate the speech of psychopath people from a psychological perspective. While Ulfa et al.
-
(2020) examined the kinds of speech techniques of psychopaths, this study also relate the semantic technique with the context showing the tendency of the utterance when the psychopath people express their experience and opinion. This study also supports the finding that psychopaths also can be diagnosed from the configuration profiles of the linguistic indicators or from their narrative styles (Gawda, 2021).
Overall, this study contributes to the literature on understanding psychopathy by exploring the semantic techniques used in the speech of psychopaths and their relationship with the psychopathic tendencies. The study takes a unique approach that focuses on language use and provides valuable insights into how psychopaths communicate and express themselves. It also highlights the potential of linguistic indicators as a diagnostic tool for psychopathy. However, further research is needed to replicate and expand on these findings, and to investigate the underlying mechanisms that drive the relationship between semantic techniques and psychopathy.
This study analyzed the verbal speech of the psychopathic individuals and serial killers in the Fear Files channel. The data were chosen from several utterances and sentences from the seven subjects in the video interviews. Based on the semantic technique used by the psychopathic individuals, six categories are found. They are vocabulary, figurative language, connotation, anaphora and repetition. After the analysis of the data, repetition is the highest verbal speech technique used by psychopathic individuals in the interview. The second high speech techniques are anaphora and vocabulary. Finally, the least found from the data analysis are positive and negative connotation and figurative language.
Regarding the characteristics shown by the psychopathic individuals and serial killers during the interview, it was found that each individual represents a characteristic of psychopathic individuals. They are the expression of irresponsibility, compulsive lying, expression of impulsive behavior, manipulative speech, lack of empathy, and poor behavior control.
This study analyzes the verbal speech of psychopathic individuals and serial killers by recording videos interviews. Therefore, the next researcher with the same interest in this field should use different approach to get different results for the research. It could be better for the next researcher to interview the psychopathic individuals and serial killers directly, or by directly watching the process of the live interviews.
This research has presented an identification of the characteristics of psychopaths by figuring out the pattern of their verbal speech. It is still a rare case in Indonesia to analyze the verbal speech of psychopathic individuals. Therefore, the next researcher may conduct the research on the utterances of psychopaths across different ethnics, cultures, ages, and dialects. Understanding the semantic techniques applied in the utterances of psychopaths can have important implications for our understanding of the disorder, as well as for diagnosis and communication skills. This finding also contributes to comprehending the language as psychopaths as complex issues related to mental health and wellbeing
The authors would like to thank for all parties who facilitated this research and for the community of linguistics research at the faculty of humanities at the State Islamic University of Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang for their support by providing workshop on current issues of linguistic research.
References
Anggara, D. (2021). Begitu Kompleks, Ini 6 Jenis Psikopat Menurut Sains. https://www.idntimes.com/science/experiment/dahli-anggara/jenis-psikopat-menurut-sains-c1c2/1
Almeida-Brites, J. (2016). The language of psychopaths: A systematic review. Aggression and violent behavior, 27, 50-54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2016.02.009
Drayton, L. A., Santos, L. R., & Baskin-Sommers, A. (2018). Psychopaths fail to automatically take the perspective of others. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(13), 3302-3307. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1721903115
Gawda, B. (2021). The Differentiation of Narrative Styles in Individuals with High Psychopathic Deviate. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-021-09824-w
Gullhaugen, A. S., & Sakshaug, T. (2019). What can we learn about psychopathic offenders by studying their communication? A review of the literature. Journal of psycholinguistic research, 48(1), 199-219. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-018-9599-y
Harper, A. (2022). Psychopaths Can Detect Vulnerability from Body Language. https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Psychopaths-Can-Detect-Vulnerability-From-Body-Language
Kendler, K. S. (2006). Reflections on the relationship between psychiatric genetics and psychiatric nosology. American Journal of Psychiatry, 163(7), 1138-1146.
Kornelia, L. (2021). Psychopath Behaviour in Emelie Film by Richard Raymond Harry Herbeck. http://eprints.uwp.ac.id/id/eprint/3276
Li, X., Li, Y., Liu, L., Bing, L., & Joty, S. (2022). Is GPT-3 a Psychopath? Evaluating Large Language Models from a Psychological Perspective. arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.10529. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2212.10529
Mitchell, P. (2021). Acquiring a conception of mind: A review of psychological research and theory. Psychology Press.
Pietrangelo, A. (2020). Is Impulsive Behavior A Disorder?
https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/impulsive-behavior
Savira, V. E. (2019) Language of psychopath: analysis of Maxim violation in the movie Gone Girl. http://repository.um.ac.id/id/eprint/66672
Showalter, D. (2019). Misdiagnosing medicalization: penal psychopathy and psychiatric practice.
Theory and Society, 48(1), 67-94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-018-09336-y
Timor, U., & Weiss, J. M. (2008). Sociolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Indications of Behavior Disorders: Analysis of a Prisoner's Discourse. International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology, 52(1), 112-126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X07300268.
Ulfa, I. M., & Indah, R. N. (2020). Semantic and morphological techniques of psychopaths in
Dark Matter Youtube Channel. CALL, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.15575/call.v2i2.9300
Verstappen, H. S. (2011). Defense Against The Psychopath. Toronto: Woodbridge Press.
Viding, E., & McCrory, E. (2019). Towards understanding atypical social affiliation in
psychopathy. The Lancet Psychiatry, 6(5), 437-444. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-
Biography of Authors
Nuriyati Nahdhiyah currently has obtained her Bachelor on English Literature. She completed her study at the State Islamic University of Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang, East Java, in 2022. Throughout her academic career, Nuriyati has shown a strong interest in linguistics, particularly in the areas of psycholinguistics, semantics, and morphology. She was born in Lumajang, 3rd December 1996. She spent her primary and secondary education in Lumajang. Nuriyati is passionate about using her knowledge in linguistics to contribute to the advancement of language studies. She believes that understanding language is crucial in improving communication and creating a better understanding between people of different cultures and backgrounds. In the future, she plans to pursue a master's degree in Linguistics and hopes to continue her research in the field.
Email: [email protected]
Rohmani Nur Indah is an associate professor of English Language Teaching. She teaches Psycholinguistics and writing skills at faculty of Humanities in Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang. She obtained her doctoral degree at State University of Malang. She also serves as editor in chief of Lingua journal and the managing editor of El Harakah Journal of Islamic Culture. In these positions, she is responsible for ensuring the quality of the content published in the journals and for providing guidance and support to the authors who contribute to them. Her current research deals with language disorder, critical thinking, and rethorical pattern. She has published numerous articles and research papers in reputable journals, and her work is highly regarded by her peers in the field
Email: [email protected]
Discussion and feedback