Diction 5.0 General Inquirer

E.B. & E.N.Cleveland State University

Diction Software- Originally created for the study of

political discourse, expanded to 36 categories of communications.

- Searches the text word frequency of 10,000 words in 31 word list dictionaries

- Creates scores for the 31 dictionaries and

9 computed variables. - Analyzes in 500 word units

Diction Dictionaries-31 Categories-Size ranges from 10 – 745 words- No words duplicated across

dictionaries- Ability to create custom dictionaries

- Maximum of ten - Maximum of 200 words per dictionary

Sample DictionaryDictionary: Leveling

-Contains words used to ignore individual differences and to build a sense of completeness and assurance.(Examples: Everybody, anyone, each, fully, always, completely, inevitable, consistent, unconditional, consummate, absolute, open-and-shut)

What does a score mean?- A normative range derived from

20,000+ texts analyzed by Diction- 36 distinct text types

- Normal range equals the -1/+1 standard deviation from the mean (68%)

Sample Results

Five Semantic Variables Based on Dictionary Formulas

-ACTIVITY = +(Praise + Satisfaction + Inspiration) – (Blame + Hardship + Denial)

OPTIMISM = +(Praise + Satisfaction + Inspiration) – (Blame + Hardship + Denial)

CERTAINTY = +(Tenacity + Leveling + Collectives + Insistence) – (Numerical Terms + Ambivalence + Self-Reference + Variety)

REALISM = +(Familiarity + Spatial Awareness + Temporal Awareness +

Present Concern + Human Interest + Concreteness) – (Past Concern + Complexity)

COMMONALITY = +(Centrality+ Cooperation + Rapport) – (Diversity + Exclusion + Liberation)

Calculated Variables Insistence Score- Words repeated three or more times in a 500 word text

Embellishment- Ratio of descriptive words to functional words

Variety- Measure of linguistic dispersion

Complexity- Measure of word size

Sample Results

Political Speech ExampleOut of range scores highlighted

Calculated Variables

Battle site Anniversary Address

Nicuraguan AmbassadorWelcome

Iraq War Resolution

Address to Harvard Students

2004 Nomination Acceptance Speech

Insistence 31.72 11.24 43.86 9.70 13.78

Embellishment

0.62 2.27 H 0.52 0.51 1.73 H

Variety 0.48 0.57 H .050 0.50 0.64 H

Complexity 4.60 5.05 H 4.62 4.11 L 4.42

Political Speech Example

MasterVariablesClass = all texts

Battle site Anniversary Address

Nicuraguan AmbassadorWelcome

Iraq War Resolution

Address to Harvard Students

2004 Nomination Acceptance Speech

Activity 51.48 46.50 L 51.64 48.98 47.88Optimism 47.63 56.82 H 48.71 49.46 62.40 H

Certainty 48.10 46.40 L 48.07 45.22 L 44.81 L

Realism 49.65 48.45 49.58 50.89

Communality

50.79 54.15 H 49.32 48.95

Convocation Addresses Dr. Michael Schwartz President, Cleveland State University

Year

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Insistence 53.11 94.65 29.79 47.26 17.36 48.79

Embellishment

0.64 0.68 0.45 2.01 H 0.38 0.42

Variety 0.50 0.52 0.48 0.59 0.75 H 0.52

Complexity 4.66 5.00 4.15 L 4.65 5.08 H 4.77

Activity 49.96 47.84 49.89 47.30 39.83 L

48.73

Optimism 57.41 H

54.38 H

53.18 59.75 H

74.48 H

51.68

Certainty 51.12 49.37 51.03 46.83 L

40.20 L

50.05

Realism 50.29 50.10 51.88 50.52 49.75 48.29

Communality

51.79 49.25 52.05 51.50 50.04 51.47

Limitations- Samples of less than 350 words handled

by extrapolation and standardization to a 500 word basis

- Wide variance in sample size (n) of the 36 communication types- Out of range not referenced to 2nd or 3rd

deviation

General Inquirer• Standard dictionaries (“custom”

allowed)• Descriptive (f and %)• “Harvard-IV-4” and “Lasswell” general-

purpose dictionaries; 182 tag categories

• Harvard: objects, animals, people, institutions, relationships, etc.

• Lasswell: Dynamics of Culture (power, respect, skill, enlightenment, wealth, etc)

Basically…• Put text file in a folder, name it

“testdir”• Testdir must be in the same folder

as General Inquirer (in Program Files)• Can run multiple files within testdir• Output opened in Excel can be

transferred to SPSS

Info http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~inquirer/

Selected Texts• 32 University Presidents’ speeches on university websites•One speech form each institution•Converted into text files •All saved in testdir folder•Used the standard dictionary

Selected Categories• Harvard: Pleasur, Ovrst, Academ,

Econ@, Exprsv, COLL, SocRel, Race, Kin@, EMOT, Place, Object, Self, Our, You, Name

• Lasswell: PowGain, RcEthic, AffTot, WltTot, WlbGain, EnlGain

“SocRel”

Validity: All Correlations

Validity: Group Correlations

“SocRel” in “Enlightenment Gain”

“SocRel” in “Power Gain”