“Don’t worry, be a senior?” The metaphorical labelling of late-life depression in Australian news media

Abstract Since the late 1980s, there has been a reconceptualization of ageing, which is also reflected in how older adults are referred to. Research on Australian English indicates that while the label seniors activates positive associations of health and well-being, the characteristics related to the label the elderly are generally negative. The question is whether this difference in semantic stereotyping is also extended to how a heavily stigmatized and little-researched mental illness, late-life depression, is conceptualized, depending on which label for older adults, i.e., seniors or the elderly , is used in the media. Relying on the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP; Pragglejaz Group. 2007. MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol 22(1). 1–39), we examined 26 articles containing the keywords “seniors” and “depression” and 83 articles with the keywords “the elderly” and “depression” published in eight leading Australian newspapers between 1987 and 2022. The analysis found that alternative conceptualizations of late-life depression do emerge, depending on which label is used: while seniors activates a less permanent state of late-life depression over which those affected have some degree of control, the elderly elicits a lasting state where those affected have very little control over their condition. Such findings clearly demonstrate the framing effect of figurative language as used in the media to shape the perception of a debilitating condition such as depression: how mental illness is metaphorically conceptualized can serve to intensify or help disperse the fears and taboos surrounding it.