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 Dictionary Dictionary: 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 Example Out of range scores highlighted Calculated Variables Battle site Anniversary Address Nicuraguan Ambassador Welcome Iraq War Resolution Address to Harvard Students 2004 Nomination Acceptance Speech Insistence Embellishment H H Variety H H Complexity H L4.42

Political Speech Example Master Variables Class = all texts Battle site Anniversary Address Nicuraguan Ambassador Welcome Iraq War Resolution Address to Harvard Students 2004 Nomination Acceptance Speech Activity L Optimism H H Certainty L L44.81 L Realism Communality H

Convocation Addresses Dr. Michael Schwartz President, Cleveland State University Year Insistence Embellishment H Variety H0.52 Complexity L H4.77 Activity L48.73 Optimism H54.38 H H74.48 H51.68 Certainty L40.20 L50.05 Realism Communality

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 2 nd or 3 rd 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

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, Exprsv, COLL, SocRel, Race, 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”