Diction 5 and General Inquirer

By

Serena Hendricks & Pete Lindmark

Diction Background

- 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

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

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)

Theatre Scripts

• We analyzed 6 monologues (3 men, women)from Absurdist Theatre Scripts: Birthday Party, Bald Soprano, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, 6 Characters in Search of an Author, Waiting for Godot, & Bald Soprano (again) to examine what makes absurdist plays satirical.

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

How to……

• File New

How to (2)….

• (Click) Add New File Open (and select files)

How to (3)…..

• Open (click) Project Properties Change Normative Values

How to (4)…..

• (Click) Processing Process All Files

Sample Results

Absurd Scripts Example• Out of Range scores Bold face Calculated Variables

6 Characters in Search of an Author-

Stepdaughter

Birthday Party-

Goldberg

The Bald Sporano-

Mary

Waiting for Godot-

Lucky

The Bald Soprano-

Mrs. Smith

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead-

Ros

Insistence 51.04 35.73 171.76 138.46 22.06 6.25

Embellishment

1.94 .62 1.25 16.62 .80 .49

Variety .60 .46 .45 .41 .64 .73

Complexity 4.21 3.97 4.30 4.12 4.16 3.97

Absurd Scripts Example• Out of Range scores Bold face

Master VariablesClass = Literature

Type = Theatre Scripts

6 Characters in Search of an Author-

Stepdaughter

Birthday Party-

Goldberg

The Bald Sporano-

Mary

Waiting for Godot-

Lucky

The Bald Soprano-

Mrs. Smith

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead-

Ros

Activity 43.04 56.00 42.83 16.45 49.54 38.18

Optimism 45.98 44.12 43.95 52.42 47.97 51.44

Certainty 45.62 47.46 56.02 48.98 45.70 48.77

Realism 52.32 49.51 58.24 57.44 48.24 49.55

Communality 50.05 49.80 49.97 49.62 49.64 49.90

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)

In short…

• 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• Website:

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

Input File

•Browse Choose .txt file (ONLY ONE)

Output File

• First Create Blank .xls file Browse Choose excel file

RUN!!!!!!

Data

Our Findings

• Hostility, Power, Pleasure, Pain, Feeling, Arousal, and EMOT have little bearing on Absurdist Plays.