The Secret Life of Pronouns_ What Our Words Say About Us - James W. Pennebaker [1]
Although the analysis of language is the focus of this book, it is really a work of psychology. Whereas linguists are primarily interested in language for its own sake, I’m interested in what people’s words say about their psychological states. Words, then, can be thought of as powerful tools to excavate people’s thoughts, feelings, motivations, and connections with others. With advancements in computer technologies, this approach is informing a wide range of scholars across many disciplines—linguists, sociolinguists, English scholars, anthropological linguists, neuroscientists, psycholinguists, developmentalists, computer scientists, computational linguists, and others. Some of the most innovative work is now coming from collaborations between academics of all stripes and companies such as Google.
If you are interested in the topics or approach of this book, there are a handful of very bright thinkers and writers whose work is accessible to a wide audience. Some who have influenced my approach the most include the sociologist Erving Goffman, the linguist George Lakoff, the cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, the sociolinguist Deborah Tannen, and the anthropologist Anna Wierzbicka.
The contributions of many others have directly affected my thinking about the fundamental connections between word use and psychological state. Freud’s early work on slips of the tongue marked the first psychological acknowledgment that unintended words that pop out of our mouths can reveal hidden thoughts and feelings. Later psychoanalysts, such as Louis Gottschalk and Walter Weintraub, provided road maps on how to link seemingly innocuous words to deeper motivations and fears that patients were expressing.
Several computer-based text analysis systems presaged my own computer work, especially Philip Stone’s General Inquirer program in the 1960s. Any comprehensive story about the early days of text analysis also includes names such as Doug Biber, Herb Clark, Donald Foster, Howard Giles, Rod Hart, Robert Hogenraad, Hans Kordy, Klaus Krippendorf, Colin Martindale, Erhard Mergenthaler, and others.
The people who have influenced me the most, however, have been my students and colleagues over the years. This book reflects the collaborative effort of dozens, even hundreds, of people. Those who have been most central to the current language project include Jenna Baddeley, David Beaver, Roger Booth, Martha Francis, Art Graesser, Carla Groom, Jeff Hancock, Molly Ireland, Ewa Kacewicz, Laura King, Matthias Mehl, Kate Niederhoffer, Keith Petrie, Nairán Ramírez-Esparza, Stephanie Rude, Yitai Seih, Richard Slatcher, Lori Stone Handelman, and Yla Tausczik. Bill Swann, Bob Josephs, and my other colleagues in the psychology department at the University of Texas at Austin have also been important in guiding my work.
This book would not have been possible without funding from the National Science Foundation, Army Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, and College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas. I’m especially grateful for the support of my book whisperer, Marc Aronson, agent, Deirdre Mullane, and editors at Bloomsbury Press, Peter Ginna and Pete Beatty.
Three people have influenced this book more than any. Cindy Chung has been at the heart of the language research with me for many years. Her ideas, feedback, and humor have made the journey a pure pleasure. Sam Gosling, my colleague and co-conspirator, has pressed me to think more broadly about personality and social processes. Finally, my wife, Ruth, has inspired, guided, and nudged me to think about stories, social relationships, and the real world in new ways every day. Her delicate fingerprints are on every page of this book.