The Secret Life of Pronouns (3 page)

The analysis of words tells us how people are thinking and, at the same time, gives us a way to guide their thinking in the future. Words can be both mirrors and tools.

AS INTERESTING AS our findings about expressive writing were, they are, by now, but a footnote to the many ways that we’ve come to use LIWC. When Martha Francis and I first developed the program, our goals were modest: identify healthy writing by looking at words. But our timing was propitious. Without computer technology and the availability of large text databases, linguists might have studied the words and psychologists or physicians might have studied health, but no one would have naturally put the two together.

Now anyone can access millions of words from thousands of people in no time at all. As someone who loves to play with numbers and statistics, I had discovered the perfect playground in LIWC. Late at night I would often find myself analyzing text files just to see who used what kinds of language. For example, most of the expressive writing studies included both women and men. Were there any differences between the sexes in the way people used language? Yes, there were differences—big differences—but they didn’t make any sense. So I did what anyone does when trying to sort out a problem late at night: I just ignored it. But then I would run another batch of text files the next day and find the same odd word differences between men and women. I won’t tell you the findings now because it would ruin the thrill of chapter 3, but trust me, the effects are big, unpredictable, and, once you think about them, make perfect sense.

As I played with more and more data sets, recurring word patterns kept popping up. Not only were there differences in the ways women and men used words but there were big differences as a function of people’s age. And social class. And emotional state, level of honesty, personality type, degree of formality, leadership ability, quality of relationships, and on and on. Word use was associated with almost every dimension of social psychology that I had ever studied. Particularly intriguing was that most of the word differences were associated with the most common and forgettable words in the English language.

Thirty years ago, had someone said that one of the high points of my professional life would be discovering the secret life of pronouns, I’m pretty sure I would have changed careers. Now I’m convinced that by understanding how and when we use these function words, we get a much better sense of the social and psychological processes affecting all of our behaviors, from our relationships with friends and family members to our ability to communicate effectively with people in business and the larger world.

If a friend’s language changes unexpectedly, we may be able to determine if he or she is depressed, angry, or deceptive. If you are an archivist or investigator, your ability to decode function words can help in identifying the true author of a text or the possible motive behind the writing of the text.

Most interesting for me, however, is that the analysis of the words we use in speaking and writing can be extraordinarily useful in helping us to understand ourselves. In the chapters that follow, you will see many examples where I have analyzed my own e-mail, letters of recommendation, and daily speech patterns in talking with friends and family members. By looking closely at words, I’ve discovered ways of improving my relationships with my family and friends, of being a better teacher, and of becoming a better leader. While I didn’t fundamentally change the way I spoke or wrote, these word analyses pointed to some of my natural shortcomings, which I have worked to improve.

Finally, this book is a travelogue of the journey my students, colleagues, and I have been taking as we’ve been studying the ways we all use language. The values guiding most of this research have been curiosity and playfulness. If you are a serious linguist, this book may disappoint or infuriate you. If you love words for their own sake, I may not share your reverence. (Indeed, after I published a paper showing that suicidal poets used pronouns differently from nonsuicidal poets, a slightly inebriated poet threatened me with a butter knife at a party in my own home.) Ultimately, I’m interested in psychology and social behavior. Words, in my world, are a window into the inner workings of people, a fascinating and revealing way to think about language and its links to the world around us all.

CHAPTER 2

Ignoring the Content, Celebrating the Style

A
LL WORDS ARE not equal. In any given sentence, some words provide basic content and meaning whereas others serve quieter support functions. Ironically, the quiet words can say more about a person than the more meaningful ones. A central theme of this book is that the content of speech can be distinguished from the style of speech. Further, words that reflect language style can reveal aspects of people’s personality, social connections, and psychological states.

This chapter lays out the overall logic of word analysis. It serves as the foundation for the rest of the book. If you simply want to see how different types of words reflect personality, deception, and psychological state, feel free to skip this chapter. You may well regret it. But then you will never know.

IT’S HELPFUL TO start with a simple exercise to give you a feeling about the ways different words work. Look closely at the picture on the next page. Who are the people? What is happening? What are their thoughts, feelings, and concerns?

How would you write or talk about this drawing? Stop for a second and describe the picture to yourself. You might even jot down your description on a piece of paper so that you can refer back to your writing throughout the chapter.

In fact, thousands of people have written about this picture as part of various psychology experiments. The kinds of stories that people tell vary widely. Some view the people as two women, others as one or two men. Some cast the two as part of a story dealing with good versus evil, wisdom versus youth, or just a family relationship between people of different generations.

Despite the differences in stories and themes, the ways people write their stories are even more striking. As an example, read the first sentences that three college students wrote in describing the picture:

PERSON 1: In the aforementioned picture an elderly woman is about to speak to a middle aged woman who looks condescending and calculating.

PERSON 2: I see an old woman looking back on her years remembering how it was to be beautiful and young.

PERSON 3: The old woman is a witch or something. She looks kinda like she is coaxing the young one to do something.

Now look more closely at each person’s writing. Can you get a sense of who each of these three people is? Who would you like to get coffee with? Which one do you trust the most? What factors influenced your answers? Although all three students saw the same drawing, they interpreted it differently. More important, however, is how they used words to describe their impressions. Even in these brief sentences, you get a sense of who these students are. The first person appears stiff and distant, relying on large words in a self-conscious way. The second has a more personal and warmer touch. The third person sounds more casual than the other two and seems not to be taking the assignment as seriously.

All three people have stamped part of their personality into their writing style. Through their largely unconscious use of words, we can begin to get a sense of who they are, how they think about others and about themselves. We can do a reasonably good job in predicting that person 1 is a male and the other two are females. He probably has a higher grade average than the other two, although his social life is likely suffering. Person 2 is the one most likely to be depressed. Person 3 is probably not doing well in school—and may well be spending too much time with friends and drinking too much.

These are more than educated guesses. They are based on evidence that the words people use in their daily lives can tell us a great deal about their personality, age, sex, social class, stress levels, biological activity, and social relationships. Words leave behind clues of a person. By analyzing these clues, we get a glimpse of each author’s personal world.

What could someone tell about you based on the words you used to describe the picture? How do we know that person 1 is a socially isolated male and person 2 is a depressive female? The secret is in distinguishing between
what
people are saying versus
how
they are saying it. Looking back at the three statements, the content of the writing is certainly different, but more striking is the way they are expressing themselves. There is a meaningful difference, then, between language content and language style.

IT AIN’T WHAT YOU SAY, IT’S THE WAY YOU SAY IT

What accounts for style? Gordon Allport, a founder of modern-day personality psychology, asked this question in trying to define the essential differences among people. He noted that people revealed themselves in almost everything they did. Some walk quickly and don’t move their arms; others seem to skip by bouncing on the balls of their feet; yet others amble, careen, or trudge along. Walking styles, he argued, are one way that people differ. But they also differ in the ways they dress, eat, and peel an orange. Style may not tell us much about where a person is walking, how hungry they are, or their preferences for fruit, but it is a meaningful window into people’s personality, attitudes, and social worlds.

Language style is no exception. How people speak or write reveals meaningful clues to personality. The challenge is in determining what accounts for style. Interestingly, linguists, high school English teachers, and Mother Nature have provided us with some hints about words that reflect style versus content.

Content words
are words that have a culturally shared meaning in labeling an object or action. For our purposes, content words include:

Nouns
e.g.,
table
,
uncle
,
justice
,
Fido

Regular and action verbs
e.g.,
to love
,
to walk
,
to hide

Most modifiers
e.g., adjectives (
blue
,
fast
,
mouthwatering
) and adverbs (
sadly
,
hungrily
)

Content words are absolutely necessary to convey an idea to someone else. Consider the three people who wrote briefly in response to the picture.

PERSON 1: In the aforementioned
picture
an
elderly woman
is about to
speak
to a
middle aged woman
who
looks condescending
and
calculating.

PERSON 2: I
see
an
old woman looking
back on her
years remembering
how it was to be
beautiful
and
young.

PERSON 3: The
old woman
is a
witch
or something. She
looks
kinda like she is
coaxing
the
young
one to do something.

Imagine you are talking with someone whose English is very poor. That person is trying to describe the picture. All you can understand are the content words that are highlighted. The fact is, you can get a good sense of what the speaker is trying to say by just hearing the content-related words. That’s good. Content words should convey content. Admittedly, this wouldn’t be a very satisfying interaction but you would be fairly certain what was going on in the speaker’s mind.

Style (or function) words
are words that connect, shape, and organize content words. Although this definition is a bit slippery, most style words fall into a general class of words variously referred to as function words, stealth words, or even junk words. A good way to think about style words is that, by themselves, they really don’t have any meaning to anyone. For example, a content word like
table
can trigger an image in everyone’s mind—the same with words like
walking
,
blue
, and
bug
. Now try to imagine
that
or
because
or
really
or
the
or even
my
. We might use words like this in most sentences but they are fairly useless on their own.

Most function words include:

To appreciate the significance of these often-misunderstood words, let’s return to our three people describing the picture.

PERSON 1:
In the aforementioned
picture
an
elderly woman
is about to
speak
to a
middle aged woman
who
looks condescending
and
calculating.

PERSON 2:
I
see
an
old woman looking
back on her
years remembering
how it was to be
beautiful
and
young.

PERSON 3:
The
old woman
is a
witch
or something
.
She
looks
kinda like she is
coaxing
the
young
one to do something
.

Now imagine that someone was only able to speak to you using the highlighted style words while trying to describe the picture. You would have absolutely no idea what the person was talking about.

Why make such a big deal about style words? Because pronouns, prepositions, and other function words are the keys to the soul. OK, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement, but bear with me. Stealth words are:

•  used at very high rates

•  short and hard to detect

•  processed in the brain differently than content words

•  very, very social

Each of these features helps to explain why function words are psychologically important and, at the same time, why so few people have examined them closely. Stealth words, then, really are quite stylish. It’s about time that these forgettable, throwaway little words get their due.

FUNCTION WORDS IN EVERYDAY LANGUAGE: THEY’RE EVERYWHERE

In 1863, four months after the devastating Battle of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most significant speeches in American history. Overlooking the battlefield where 7,500 soldiers died, Lincoln’s brief speech helped to reframe the Civil War. Read his speech quickly so that you can form an impression of what’s being said.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Now, close your eyes and reflect on the content of the speech. Which words occurred most frequently? In your mind, try to recall which words Lincoln used the most in penning such a powerful speech. I’m serious. Shut your eyes and make a list in your mind of the most frequently used words in this speech.

OK, you can open your eyes. Most unsuspecting people who are asked to do this will think the most common words are
nation
,
war
,
men
, and possibly
dead
. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that function words are far more frequent than any content words. In this particular speech, the most commonly used word was
that
, which was used twelve times and accounted for 4.5 percent of all the words in the speech. Other frequently used words:
the
(4.1 percent),
we
(3.7 percent),
here
(3.5 percent),
to
(3.0 percent),
a
(2.6 percent),
and
(2.2 percent),
can, for, have, it, not, of, this
(1.9 percent each). In fact, these fourteen little words account for almost 37 percent of all the words Lincoln used in this beautifully crafted speech. Only one content word is in the top fifteen,
nation
, which was used only 1.9 percent of the time. It is remarkable that such a great speech can be largely composed of small, insignificant words.