Linguistic Personality of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Character Nebula: Narrative and LIWC Analyses

Abstract

Blockbuster films intended for an international audience often depict universally recognisable psychological motivations and limitations, presenting characters whose verbal expressions create distinct psychological impressions. This paper focused on the relationship between language use, including narratives and psychological categories of words, and the psychological traits of cinematic personalities. The study aimed to investigate how a character's language usage exposed their personality, psychological attributes, and transformations throughout their story arc and archetype. To achieve this, in the research a connection between Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, Jung's concept of archetypes, and Schmidt's typology of master characters in fiction was drawn, which expanded the understanding of the heroine Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy verbal behavior. The research further defined the character's psychological image and arc by analysing their speech patterns. It identified the character's archetypes, namely the Backstabber and the Father's Daughter, and explored the progression between these archetypes. Additionally, the article employed the narrative analysis to construct the character's story. The narrative analysis was concluded with the implementation of the LIWC-22 psycholinguistic analysis in order to validate the findings derived from the psycholinguistics and cinematic studies. This method allowed for a comprehensive examination of the language used by cinematic characters, providing insights into their psychological traits and development. Ultimately, this research has contributed to the comprehension of how people's psychological characteristics are depicted and communicated through language in mass cinematography.