Narratives of Madness: A Functional-Cognitive Analysis of Inner Speech in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

Authors

  • Abdul Aziz Mohamed Mohamed Ali El Deen

    Department of English Language and Literature, College of Languages and Translation, Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU), Riyadh P.O. Box 5701, Saudi Arabia
  • Ahmed Ali Teleb

    Department of Psychology, College of Education, King Khalid University, Abha P.O. Box 62521, Saudi Arabia
  • Amany Hamed Mohamed

    English Department, College of Arts, New Valley University, El-Kharga P.O. Box72511, Egypt

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i10.10902
Received: 5 July 2025 | Revised: 21 July 2025 | Accepted: 7 August 2025 | Published Online: 15 October 2025

Abstract

This study presents a functional-cognitive linguistic analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper. Drawing on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Vygotsky's cognitive approach to inner speech, the study examines how the ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions of language reflect the narrator's psychological decline and the oppressive gender roles of her time. The ideational metafunction decodes the mental processes experienced by the protagonist, while the interpersonal metafunction reflects the deterioration of identity and relationships under the immense strain of stress. Furthermore, the textual metafunction highlights the thematic progression and the cohesion strategies that mirror the protagonist's descent into psychosis. Qualitative analysis of mental processes, modal verbs, syntactic fragmentation, and repetition reveals a gradual breakdown in linguistic structures that mirrors the narrator's descent into madness. The features of inner speech (ellipsis, compression, and subject omission) are analyzed as they serve as linguistic markers of cognitive decline. The Yellow Wallpaper emerges as a symbolic text onto which the narrator projects her inner turmoil and resistance to societal norms. By aligning linguistic form with cognitive function, this research contributes to interdisciplinary discussions in linguistics and psychology, offering insights into how language encodes mental illness and the marginalization of women's roles.

Keywords:

The Yellow Wallpaper; Inner Speech; Systemic Functional Linguistics; Mental Illness

References

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How to Cite

Ali El Deen, A. A. M. M., Ali Teleb, A., & Mohamed, A. H. (2025). Narratives of Madness: A Functional-Cognitive Analysis of Inner Speech in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(10), 1112–1123. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i10.10902

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 10 (October 2025)

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Article

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Copyright © 2025 Abdul Aziz Mohamed Mohamed Ali El Deen, Ahmed Ali Teleb, Amany Hamed Mohamed

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This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.