BETWEEN SILENCE AND SONG: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF MALE EMOTIONAL REGULATION THROUGH SAD PAKISTANI MUSIC

Abstract

This corpus-based study investigated the role of sad Pakistani music in emotional regulation among male youth following romantic heartbreak within a sociocultural context where open emotional expression seems inhibited. Situated in Pakistan's entrenched environment, this study focuses on melancholic songs and how they are psychologically safe and socially acceptable forums for processing loss, grief, heartbreak, and emotional vulnerability, emphasising the role of music in mediating emotional pain under masculine norms. Despite burgeoning research about emotional regulation through music, non-western culture retrieved limited attestation where emotional restraint is essential to masculine identity. Additionally, there is limited focus on how Urdu and Punjabi lyrical traditions assist emotional expression and reevaluation within Pakistani masculine norms. Addressing this gap, music provides an adaptive coping mechanism, while long-term emotional repression is linked with psychological distress. A qualitative interdisciplinary approach was used in this study to analyse a self-constructed corpus of fifty Pakistani sad songs (25 artists × 2 songs), released after and before 2000. The lyrics were analysed using linguistic and psychological frameworks after being transcribed into both Roman Urdu and English. Through metaphor, symbolism, and repetition, findings indicate that melancholic music serves as a successful, culturally effective method for male emotional regulation in Pakistan.