Thanks and Goodbye: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis on Emotional Distress in Bts’ Suga’s K-Pop Compositions

Mental health issues have become prevalent among music artists, more specifically among Korean pop (K-pop) idols. Bangtan Boys’ (BTS) Agust D (aka Suga), for a time adopted his alter ego to voice out his inner turmoil. Using corpus discourse analysis grounded on emotion-focused therapy framework, we analysed the linguistic patterns used by Agust D in his trilogy of mixtapes i.e., Agust D, D-2, and D-day released in 2016, 2020, and 2023. Findings showed his creative use of language in describing his contrasting emotions e.g., fear and anger. Linguistic evidence suggests that his anger is a primary maladaptive emotion which channelled self-criticism triggered by fear and shame, and denial of his feelings was a form of self-defence. Changes in the linguistic patterns were significant as they presented his state of mental well-being, coming to terms with his inner struggles, and fully embracing his true self.