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Wierzbicka, A. (1997). Understanding cultures through their key words. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Wolf, M., Chung, C. K., & Kordy, H. (2010). Inpatient treatment to online aftercare: E-mailing themes as a function of therapeutic outcomes. Psychotherapy Research, 20, 71–85.

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Woods, K. M. (2007). Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and terrorism: Emerging insights from captured Iraqi documents, vols. 1. Institute for Defense Analysis, Alexandria, VA. www.fas.org/irp/eprint/iraqi/index.html

Wright, A. (2009). Mining the web for feelings, not facts. New York Times, August 23. www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/technology/internet/24emotion.html

Yarkoni, T. (2010). Personality in 100,000 words: A large-scale analysis of personality and word use among bloggers. Journal of Research in Personality, 44, 363–73.

Zhou, L., Burgoon, J. K., Nunamaker, J. F., & Twitchell, D. (2004). Automating linguistics-based cues for detecting deception in text-based asynchronous computer-mediated communications. Group Decision and Negotiation, 13, 81–106.

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A Handy Guide for Spotting and Interpreting Function Words in the Wild

DIFFERENT FUNCTION WORDS can signal different psychological states. Pronouns, articles, prepositions, verbs, and emotion words provide different information about how people are thinking, feeling, and connecting with others. Feel free to tear out this Word Guide for use in all future settings where people are using language.

ATTENTIONAL FOCUS: PRONOUNS, VERB TENSE

Language tracks our focus of attention. We talk and write about objects, events, and people that are on our minds. A good rule of thumb is that people who pay a great deal of attention to other people tend to use personal pronouns at high rates. People who obsess about the past use past-tense verbs. Turning this observation upside down, by counting instances of pronoun and verb tense use, we can guess what naturally grabs people’s attention.

PERSONAL PRONOUNS

We probably spend more time thinking and talking about other people than anything else. If another person makes us exuberantly happy, furiously angry, or deeply sad, we often can’t stop thinking about him or her. We will often drop his or her name in our conversations with others, tossing in numerous pronouns as we refer to the person. Consequently, if the speaker is thinking and talking about a friend, expect high rates of third-person singular pronouns. If worried about communists, right-wing radio hosts, or bureaucrats,