Comments on: The Meaning of Words: Obama versus McCain

By: Bernie Burogis

Bernie Burogis — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 08:35:37 +0000

A person’s spoken word is not the ultimate measure of an individual personality traits (whether cognitive or non-cognitive.. etc, etc.. ), that is exactly why the lie detector is invented. All people can fabricate the words they want to say including you Mr. Pennebaker, you just told us it is still in its infancy! Linguistic Inguiry & Word Count is only a method of analysis and predictions!! A person’s action is much better than a text or word!! Like the proverb do not judge a book by its cover!!

By: _ dharmalog » Estudo de linguagem d� vit�ria para Obama

_ dharmalog » Estudo de linguagem d� vit�ria para Obama — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:05:46 +0000

[...] Talvez o apoio do general republicano Colin Powell tenha sido o cheque-mate na candidatura John McCain, mas a vit�ria do candidato democrata Barak Obama talvez j� tenha sido anunciada h� muito tempo: quando ele escolheu ser mais positivo, centrar sua imagem na mudan�a futura e ao usar termos como “hope” para sua campanha. Segundo o professor de Psicologia James W. Pennebaker, da Universidade do Texas, um dos maiores especialistas em linguagem e pesquisador de discursos e linguagem que v�o dos Beatles ao Al Qaeda, d� pra prever at� as diferen�as de estilo de governo com base na linguagem expressa. No seu excelent blog WordWatchers, o prof. Pennebaker faz uma verdadeira devassa nos principais eventos da elei��o americana, contando at� pronomes usados nos debates e fazendo soma de palavras que expressam conjuntos semelhantes de emo��o. Recentemente ele foi assunto de uma �tima mat�ria no The New York Times – He Counts Your Words (Even Those Pronouns) – que tamb�m � muito interessante e analisa, entre outras coisas, os h�bitos dos mentirosos e as express�es mais usadas por doentes que se curam mais r�pido. Trecho de uma an�lise sobre as atuais elei��es americanas, que d�o vantagem a Obama por sua linguagem: (…) the degree to which candidates express optimism and positive emotion is linked to electability. We have found this as well. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush used more positive emotion words and future tense verbs than any of their rivals in the presidential debates and interviews. No other language dimensions have predicted voter preferences as well. ~ James W. Pennebaker, The Meaning of Words: Obama vs McCain [...]

By: This Week’s BioBites: computers can predict your age… and drunkenness! « BioBites

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:45:10 +0000

[...] 3.) As we all know, it isn’t just what you say, but how you say it. The NY Times interviews James Pennebaker about his research in word counting and psychology. Interested? Find out what it could tell us about Obama and McCain. [...]

By: Larry Gilman

Larry Gilman — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:46:34 +0000

Mike’s point is superb and deserves a scientifically convincing answer. Perhaps I have not drilled deep enough, but I see no description on your website of what specific texts have been used for this analysis, only a statement that “speeches, press conferences, debates, and interviews” were used. If prepared speeches are included, then of course we are not talking about Obama and McCain’s language patterns at all. We are talking the language patterns of two collective speakers or groups, groups which include the actual candidates but cannot be identified with them. The makeup of these groups may not even be stationary (speechwriters can come and go). If this is the case, we must distinguish between Obama (the man) and “Obama” (the collective speaker), likewise McCain and “McCain.” Stationary, unitary speakers cannot be assume: in fact, we know prima facie that they do not exist. This seems to me to call the whole analysis into question.

I am also skeptical about certain statements made in the article without any footnoting or amplification. For instance, the statement that higher usage of exclusive words is associated with better college grades. The implicit causal claim seems to be that use of such words reflects an underlying stylistic or psychological bent that also issues in behaviors reflected in better grades, more honest lab work, etc. But it seems to me equally plausible that doing one’s homework in college _affects_ later word usage; and/or, if use of exclusive words precedes good college grades, that such use reflects greater literacy going into college — which may have many causes, a psychic bent (or whatever one calls it) being only one such. Complex logical distinctions are more likely to be verbalized in written nonfiction texts, I would wager, than in colloquial speech, and bookish people are more apt to talk like books — regardless of temperament. And they are perhaps more likely to thrive in text-centered environments like colleges, and even to behave appropriately (“honestly”) in them.

I do not mean to ignorantly disparage a whole body of work, but there is some heavy convincing you have yet to undertake here. There have been too many phrenologies foisted on us in the past. And there is another very basic question of appropriateness: a method with _statistical_ validity might still be bogus if applied to _individuals_. What is the variance? What are the chances that any given individual is going to fall near the group average? If the variance is wide, then it can’t be very meaningful to analyze McCain, Obama, or any other individual person. Or, rather, I should say, “McCain” or “Obama.”

Sincerely,

Larry Gilman, PhD
http://www.larrygilman.net
http://www.nolongerbythinking.blogspot.com

By: Dr. Clifton Chadwick

Dr. Clifton Chadwick — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:06:00 +0000

I think a very useful and important contribution would be if you analyse “Dreams of My Father,” and Ayers’ 2001 autobiography “Fugitive Days.” You might find truly revealing results.
Keep up your good work!

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:19:29 +0000

Dina makes the crucial point. In this entire analysis, you seem to be assuming that what the candidates say is representative of their personality, rather than reflecting the style (not to mention the rhetorical strategy) of their speech writers. So Obama uses more verbs than McCain. Your leap from this empirical observation to assertions about how they “understand” or “define” the world is startling. Are we to assume that McCain and Obama engage in naive stream-of-consciousness soliloquies when on the stump? An alternate hypothesis: Obama’s speech writers think independents want to know what he’ll do as president (verb). McCain’s speech writers think independents want to hear conviction about what kind of a (article) world it is that we live in. I think a more scientific approach would be to admit that we know very little about the candidates’ cognition from their word choice.

By: C Workman

C Workman — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:49:28 +0000

I just began the (referenced) blog (having written this piece 10-9-08) and found it uncanny, as I happened upon the “Counting Words” article from a NYTimes link just this evening. My piece had not particularly been meant to have political enscathings, but oddly enough, last night also I had found myself reading some blogs at wordwatchers.wordpress.com via a link I had discovered on a Ron Paul website. I suppose the nail that I am driving is: “What a small (web) world it is!”

By: William P. Reimann

William P. Reimann — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:08:36 +0000

As a retired teacher; and maybe as a lover of the language, too, I have felt repeatedly unnerved by some of my student’s near compulsion to insert the word ‘like’ with such unconscious frequency that it seems (almost) to be between every second word.
The same could be said for ‘y’know’.
I wondered if anyone kept count on those jewels, or else had an opinion about why it has reached epidemic proportions.

By: Pawlie Kokonuts

Pawlie Kokonuts — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:29:49 +0000

A fascinating, if nascent, science. Intriguing, though, that Hillary did not get the nomination, although your premise would seem to predict she would have. And, as others have noted, so many other factors apply. Still, I salute you for this attempt at a new sort of analysis. (Posted about you on my blog today.)

By: Evander Price

Evander Price — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:13:12 +0000

I wrote a linguistic analysis of Barack Obama’s language that readers of this article might find interesting. I’d be very interested to hear any feedback your readers might have.

It is located at http://spectaclesmagazine.com called “How to Talk Barack”.

If you’re pressed for time, I’d direct you to the final section “The Beat”, whcih is the one the one that the majority of readers find most interesting.