Linguistic Characteristics of Numerical Text and Linguistic Violence - Their Effects on Individual Self-Security: An Analysis from the Maslow Perspective

Abstract

Anchored in the field of Applied Linguistics, this study examines the defining linguistic characteristics of Kurdish digital discourse across social media platforms. It explores how these features foster diverse expressions of verbal abuse and subsequently destabilize individual psychological well-being, evaluated through the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The core inquiry addresses how the inherent properties of digital communication—such as linguistic economy, the absence of non-verbal cues, rapid transmission, and the permanence of posts—disrupt the equilibrium within the researcher’s proposed "Language–Emotion–Psychological Security" triad. Consequently, this dynamic shifts online discourse toward various dimensions of violence, including explicit, subtle, informative, and intentional silence. Utilizing a qualitative descriptive-analytical approach, the findings demonstrate that digital text structures actively generate verbal aggression. From a linguistic standpoint, this induces systemic instability that progressively impairs psychological security across Maslow’s levels—starting with basic safety and belonging, and extending to self-esteem and self-actualization.

Social networks have changed the nature of human communication from verbal and physical speech to digitally written text that lacks physical symbols and is characterized by speed, abbreviation, and documentability. The main problem of the study is how these linguistic and technical characteristics of digital texts pave the way for the emergence of human and technical dimensions of language violence (overt, covert, intentional silence, documented, and news). will it collapse us?