CATA Presentation: LIWC & General Inquirer

Alicia Romano and Colleen Orihill2009

LIWC: Linguistic Inquiry and Word CountDesigned by James W. Pennebaker, Roger J. Booth, and Martha E.

FrancisThe program was designed to analyze over 70 dimensions of

language 4 general descriptor categories (total word count, words per

sentence, percentage of words captured by the dictionary, and percent of words longer than six letters)

22 standard linguistic dimensions (e.g., percentage of words in the text that are pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs, etc.)

32 word categories tapping psychological constructs (e.g., affect, cognition, biological processes)

7 personal concern categories (e.g., work, home, leisure activities) 3 paralinguistic dimensions (assents, fillers, nonfluencies) 12 punctuation categories (periods, commas, etc.)

http://www.liwc.net/index.php

How LIWC WorksAnalyzes .txt and .doc(x) files. Output is given in .txt form but can be easily

transferred to an excel file.Output variable information:

http://www.liwc.net/descriptiontable1.phpRead more about LIWC dictionaries

(development, internal and external validity, etc.) http://www.liwc.net/liwcdescription.php#index7

Popular Children’s Books

Curious George by H.A. ReyHorton Hatches the Egg by Dr. SeussGoodnight Moon by Margaret Wise BrownPokey Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey

Example of Text

LIWC Interface

Opening Text file

Saving Output

Output

Results

General Inquirer: Overview

General Inquirer Internet Version (http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~inquirer/)

 Codes and classifies text using 182 General Inquirer categories

developed for social-science content-analysis research applications to assess language reflecting particular institutions, emotion-laden words, cognitive orientation etc.

Creator Phillip J. Stone holds summer seminars on the program at the University of Essex.

Contact Roger Hurwitz with questions about access to the General Inquirer (rhhu@csail.mit.edu)

General Inquirer: How it WorksUser must create folders (on the desktop) for

both the input and the output.

The output is an Excel spreadsheet of a matrix of "tag counts" for each category, with (2) separate rows of tag counts for each file processed – a “raw” count and a “scaled statistic” count.

The Excel spreadsheet, originally in .txt form needs to be saved in .xls form.

General Inquirer: DictionariesGeneral Inquirer tag categories come from four sources:

Harvard IV-4 dictionaryLasswell value dictionary

New constructionsMarker categories

LINK TO DICTIONARY DESCRIPTIONS OF GENERAL INQUIRER TAG CATEGORIES (FROM FOUR SOURCES): http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~inquirer/homecat.htm

LINK TO COMPLETE listings for just the Harvard IV-4 categories - Maryland Webuse site: http://www.webuse.umd.edu:9090/tags/

General Inquirer: Data Sources(6)Horoscopes - November

2009:

Town & Country MagazineMarie Clare

General Inquirer: Interface

General Inquirer: Desktop FileData Source Input

General Inquirer: Example of TextAquarius January 21 – February 19

Too much seems to be going on at once. Professionally, you’re in demand, and others are depending on you to provide inspiration and leadership. Partners are exerting pressure on you, and issues involving home and domestic affairs have reached a climax. With Jupiter powerfully aspected in your sign, you’re inclined to be optimistic, but you need to make more of an effort to remain centered and focuses. Some castles in the air are bound to come tumbling down when Saturn squares Pluto on the 15th, though you should have little difficulty making the necessary repairs and turning adversity to your advantage by the 24th.

General Inquirer: Desktop Files Data Output Files

General Inquirer: Saving Output in Excel form

 

General Inquirer: Saving Output in Excel Form – Yes!

General Inquirer: ResultswordcountPositiv Negativ Strong Power WeakActive Passive

T&C AQUARIUS161 7 4 19 6 4 13 7

s 161 4.347826 2.484472 11.80124 3.726708 2.484472 8.074534 4.347826MC AQUARIUS

100 3 4 4 4 2 8 1s 100 3 4 4 4 2 8 1

T&C ARIES99 4 1 11 3 0 11 1

s 99 4.040404 1.010101 11.11111 3.030303 0 11.11111 1.010101MC ARIES

99 4 1 11 3 0 11 1s 99 4.040404 1.010101 11.11111 3.030303 0 11.11111 1.010101

T&C CANCER168 8 2 13 4 1 8 5

s 168 4.761905 1.190476 7.738095 2.380952 0.595238 4.761905 2.976191MC CANCER

99 1 3 7 3 0 7 2s 99 1.010101 3.030303 7.070707 3.030303 0 7.070707 2.020202

T&C CAPRICORN164 7 3 19 10 2 16 2

s 164 4.268293 1.829268 11.58537 6.097561 1.219512 9.756098 1.219512MC CAPRICORN

93 1 4 8 3 2 5 4s 93 1.075269 4.301076 8.602151 3.225807 2.150538 5.376344 4.301076

T&C GEMINI173 11 3 18 6 2 20 4

s 173 6.358381 1.734104 10.40462 3.468208 1.156069 11.56069 2.312139MC GENINI 104 5 2 10 4 1 7 1

s 104 4.807693 1.923077 9.615385 3.846154 0.961538 6.730769 0.961538T&C LEO172 7 2 15 3 0 14 4

s 172 4.069768 1.162791 8.72093 1.744186 0 8.139535 2.325581MC LEO 105 5 5 9 5 2 7 5

s 105 4.761905 4.761905 8.571428 4.761905 1.904762 6.666667 4.761905