Discourse of Online Social Support

This book sheds light on the communication of social support, language use, and therapeutic effects in the context of online self-help groups for anxiety and depression. The book has two major purposes: the first is to enhance understanding of the phatic communication through a discourse-pragmatic perspective; and the second is to demonstrate the use of discourse analysis to discuss the potential therapeutic effects of the online self-help groups. Key concepts, including genre study, speech act