What Are They Gonna Think About Me? An Innovative Text Analysis on Social Anxiety and Taijin Kyofusho Through MADIT Methodology

Meaning and translation are never-ending issues that constantly challenge researchers who work in cross-cultural settings, especially when the focus is on how people use language to express and interact in relation to their distress experiences. Many efforts have been undertaken in order to try to understand and manage the content variance that can emerge from context and linguistic differences. The present study aims at offering its contribution on this topic by presenting MADIT methodology, an innovative textual analysis that focuses on the processual use of language. Using the theoretical references of Dialogic Science, language is analysed as an interactive process, leading the researchers to observe the modalities through which language is used (the how) instead of the different contents brought by speakers (the what). After discussing the theoretical differences between content and processual analysis, we present MADIT methodology through a comparative explorative study on the discursive production about taijin kyofusho and social anxiety in Japanese and Italian contexts. The results pointed out how, going beyond the content differences and focusing on the processual interactive reality generated through language, it is possible to observe cross-cultural similarities in the use of language to shape distress experiences.