LEXICO-SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC-STYLISTIC DEVICES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF BETH ANN STANTON'S IMAGE IN THE SCREENPLAY "WHY WOMEN KILL": A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The article presents a psycholinguistic analysis of Beth Ann Stanton’s speech in the screenplay of the television series “Why Women Kill” (2019) by M. Cherry. The study establishes systematic correlations between the character’s lexico-semantic and syntactic-stylistic devices and the archetypal characteristics of The Nurturer as defined by V. L. Schmidt’s classification. The methodological framework integrates psycholinguistic discourse analysis, media narrative linguistics, and archetypal character theory. The research corpus comprises 317 contextualised dialogue instances extracted by continuous sampling from complete screenplay transcripts of the first season. Application of descriptive method, contextual analysis, and quantitative calculation revealed 56 lexico-semantic and 47 syntactic-stylistic units distributed across 103 word forms, demonstrating a stylistically differentiated speech profile of the character. Among lexico-semantic devices, euphemism dominates (21.43%), performing protective semantic softening of traumatic realities across several thematic domains. Hyperbole (16.07%) and metaphor with simile (8.93% each) form the emotionally rich discourse. The lexical level also features 31 politeness markers constructing the character’s communicative identity as an ideal hostess. At the syntactic level, aposiopesis prevails (53.19%) as a performative realization of psychological uncertainty and reflexivity. Rhetorical questions (17.02%) function as indirect persuasion devices. Analysis across three thematic dimensions – care, loss, and protection of the vulnerable – confirms the systematic correlation between speech patterns and the key characteristics of The Nurturer archetype. The findings substantiate the effectiveness of a corpus-discourse approach to screen character analysis and contribute to media linguistics methodology.