Natural disasters are highly traumatic for those who experience them, and they can have an immense and often lasting emotional impact (Cox et al., 2008). Emotion has been studied in linguistics through its enactment in language, and this field of research has increased over the past decades. Despite this, the expression of emotion in post-disaster narratives is a largely unexplored field of research. This thesis investigates how emotion is expressed in narratives taken from the QuakeBox corpus (Walsh et al., 2013), recorded, following the Christchurch earthquakes, in 2012 and rerecorded in 2019. I take a mixed methods approach, combining computer-based emotion recognition software and discourse analytic techniques, to explore the expression of emotion at both a broad and narrow level. Two emotion recognition programs, Empath (Fast et al., 2016) and Speechbrain (Ravanelli et al., 2021), are employed to measure the levels of positive and negative emotion detected in a wide dataset of participants, which are investigated in relation to the gender and age of participants, and the temporal difference between the first and second QuakeBox recordings. In a second phase, a subset of these participants’ narratives was analysed qualitatively, exploring the co-construction of emotion and identity through a social constructionist lens and examining the societal Discourses present in the earthquake narratives. The findings highlight the relevance of gender in the expression of emotion. Female speakers have higher levels of positive emotion than non-female speakers in the findings of both emotion recognition programs, and there is a clear gendered difference in the construction of identity in the narratives, influencing the expression of emotion. The expression of emotion also appears to be mediated by New Zealand culture. Within this, a Discourse of the Christchurch earthquakes emerges, with motifs of luck, gratitude, and community, which reflects the values of the people of Christchurch at the time. Findings reinforced in both phases of the analysis also indicate differences between the lexical content and acoustic features in the emotion expressions, supporting previous research that argues that the expression of emotion, as a performative act, does not reflect the speaker’s inner state directly. This research adds a new dimension to (socio)linguistic research on emotion, as well as providing insight into how crisis survivors display emotion in their post-disaster narratives.
A pdf transcript of Ian's second earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox Take 2 project. Interviewer: Samuel Hope. Transcriber: Josie Hepburn.
An edited copy of the pdf transcript of Caroline Murray's second earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox Take 2 project. At the participant's request, parts of this transcript have been redacted. Interviewer: Paul Millar. Transcriber: Maggie Blackwood.
An entry from Jennifer Middendorf's blog for 23 March 2011 entitled, "More bookmarks".
A story submitted by Anonymous to the QuakeStories website.
Canta Magazine Volume 82 Issue 6 from 4 May 2011.
Canta Magazine Volume 82 Issue 0 from 14 March 2011.
Canta Magazine Volume 82 Issue 11 from 13 June 2011.
A PDF copy of the Selwyn Times community newspaper, published on Tuesday 7 September 2010.
Page 1 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Wednesday 22 February 2012.
Page 4 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Wednesday 22 February 2012.
Our city is a repository for the social and historical narrative of our past Each street, wall, facade, interior is an integral part of the people who walked passed them, shopped in them, worked in…
An entry from Jennifer Middendorf's blog for 23 July 2014 entitled, "Art and Science".
An entry from Jennifer Middendorf's blog for 27 July 2014 entitled, "(Re) Openings".
Page 21 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 18 June 2011.
A PDF copy of The Star newspaper, published on Friday 25 February 2011.
Transcript of Heather's earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox project.
Video of Sylvia's earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox project.
An entry from Jennifer Middendorf's blog for 4 July 2014 entitled, "Birthdays and bad TV".
Canta Magazine Volume 81 Issue 19 from 20 September 2010.
Transcript of Jo's earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox project.
A story submitted by Peter Low to the QuakeStories website.
Video of Audrey Dragovich's earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox project.
Transcript of Audrey Dragovich's earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox project.
Transcript of participant number UC226AD's earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox project.
Transcript of Jessica Lovell's earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox project.
Transcript of Alex Evans's earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox project.
Transcript of Suzanne Bateup's earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox project.
This article discusses the use of radio after major earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2010 and 2011. It draws on archival sources to retrospectively research post-quake audiences in the terms people used during and soon after the earthquakes through personal narratives and Twitter. Retrospective narratives of earthquake experiences affirm the value of radio for communicating the scale of disaster and comforting listeners during dislocation from safe home spaces. In the narratives radio is often compared with television, which signifies electricity supply and associated comfort but also visually confirms the city’s destruction. Twitter provides insights into radio use from within the disaster period, but its more global reach facilitates reflection on online and international radio from outside the disaster-affected area. This research demonstrates the value of archival audience research, and finds that the combination of online radio and Twitter enables a new form of participatory disaster spectatorship from afar.
Transcript of Leslie Llewellyn James Griffiths's earthquake story, captured by the UC QuakeBox project.
