LIWC: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count

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Table 3. LIWC2007 Output Variable Information

Category Emotional writing Control writing Science Articles Blogs Novels Talking Grand Means Mean SDs
Linguistic Processes
Word count (mean) 443 405 2,704 7,304 70,033 596 13580 12203
Words/sentence 19.56 19.84 14.61 46.81 22.02 25.87 24.79 67.42
Dictionary words 93.42 88.55 53.66 83.83 83.57 91.49 82.42 4.92
Words>6 letters 13.27 13.87 29.55 14.12 16.33 9.43 16.10 3.71
Total function words 63.93 57.53 34.72 55.29 57.17 60.48 54.85 4.99
   Total pronouns 20.23 14.29 3.18 16.07 14.89 21.52 15.03 3.30
      Personal pronouns 14.23 10.78 0.82 10.67 10.29 13.63 10.07 2.87
         1st pers singular 10.40 8.50 0.12 6.42 2.55 6.30 5.72 2.48
         1st pers plural 0.73 0.93 0.37 0.88 0.55 1.09 0.76 0.83
         2nd person 0.39 0.20 0.00 1.23 1.29 3.94 1.18 0.93
         3rd pers singular 2.01 0.73 0.04 1.48 4.92 1.46 1.77 1.33
         3rd pers plural 0.71 0.41 0.28 0.65 0.98 0.84 0.65 0.57
      Impersonal pronouns 6.00 3.51 2.36 5.40 4.61 7.89 4.96 1.56
   Articles 4.97 6.63 7.67 5.89 8.21 4.42 6.30 1.95
Common verbs 17.44 13.59 4.98 14.61 13.01 19.94 13.93 2.73
   Auxiliary verbs 10.65 7.42 3.90 8.81 7.76 12.38 8.49 2.11
   Past tense 5.76 4.55 1.45 3.83 6.29 3.98 4.31 2.25
   Present tense 9.16 6.74 2.70 8.68 4.57 13.97 7.64 2.73
   Future tense 1.12 1.54 0.37 1.06 1.14 0.99 1.04 0.80
   Adverbs 6.29 4.48 1.35 5.46 3.76 6.22 4.59 1.44
   Prepositions 12.94 16.06 12.87 12.06 14.06 9.33 12.89 2.08
   Conjunctions 7.39 7.71 4.30 6.39 6.65 5.67 6.35 1.64
   Negations 2.24 0.84 0.40 1.78 1.69 2.92 1.65 0.95
   Quantifiers 3.12 2.46 1.93 2.79 2.27 2.23 2.47 0.94
   Numbers 1.31 2.73 7.05 1.96 1.17 1.95 2.70 1.60
Swear words 0.11 0.03 0.00 0.33 0.06 0.37 0.15 0.29
Psychological Processes
Social processes 9.09 5.55 2.61 8.65 12.26 11.75 8.32 2.93
   Family 0.99 0.33 0.08 0.38 0.41 0.24 0.41 0.53
   Friends 0.50 0.42 0.04 0.25 0.17 0.16 0.26 0.32
   Humans 0.84 0.38 0.24 0.79 1.05 0.81 0.69 0.62
Affective processes 6.02 2.57 2.18 5.84 4.89 4.93 4.41 1.59
   Positive emotion 3.28 1.83 1.33 3.72 2.86 3.42 2.74 1.27
   Negative emotion 2.67 0.71 0.84 2.07 1.98 1.49 1.63 0.91
      Anxiety 0.68 0.21 0.16 0.30 0.44 0.18 0.33 0.33
      Anger 0.66 0.14 0.13 0.76 0.55 0.58 0.47 0.48
      Sadness 0.63 0.14 0.29 0.42 0.57 0.19 0.37 0.37
Cognitive processes 19.66 14.42 11.28 15.97 15.23 15.66 15.37 2.85
   Insight 3.25 1.31 1.82 2.17 1.99 2.34 2.15 1.05
   Causation 1.85 1.28 2.16 1.42 1.02 1.55 1.55 0.84
   Discrepancy 2.13 1.08 0.48 1.54 1.52 1.73 1.41 0.79
   Tentative 2.93 2.31 1.33 2.65 2.16 2.36 2.29 1.05
   Certainty 1.73 0.80 0.56 1.40 1.43 1.34 1.21 0.64
   Inhibition 0.46 0.38 0.63 0.47 0.61 0.37 0.49 0.39
   Inclusive 5.09 6.37 4.08 4.66 5.35 3.88 4.91 1.54
   Exclusive 3.49 1.71 0.92 2.78 2.22 3.26 2.40 1.06
Perceptual processes 2.08 1.91 1.15 2.27 3.28 2.27 2.16 1.16
   See 0.53 0.83 0.65 0.87 1.26 0.99 0.86 0.79
   Hear 0.44 0.35 0.06 0.65 1.15 0.69 0.56 0.47
   Feel 0.96 0.62 0.24 0.60 0.74 0.48 0.61 0.50
Biological processes 1.95 2.97 1.02 2.05 2.13 1.52 1.94 1.44
   Body 0.51 1.05 0.28 0.75 1.21 0.59 0.73 0.85
   Health 0.93 0.49 0.57 0.54 0.44 0.31 0.55 0.65
   Sexual 0.34 0.05 0.06 0.41 0.18 0.32 0.23 0.39
   Ingestion 0.26 1.44 0.15 0.44 0.36 0.37 0.50 0.65
Relativity 13.77 20.13 10.19 13.75 13.92 12.77 14.09 3.21
   Motion 2.07 3.57 1.21 2.06 2.18 2.69 2.30 1.15
   Space 5.38 7.92 6.08 5.61 6.83 5.46 6.21 1.82
   Time 6.03 8.20 2.65 5.72 4.65 4.34 5.27 1.84
Current Concerns
Work 2.14 3.74 1.74 1.71 1.01 1.67 2.00 1.40
Achievement 1.63 1.47 1.60 1.45 1.13 0.95 1.37 0.84
Leisure 0.78 1.86 0.41 1.60 0.69 1.04 1.06 0.84
Home 0.64 1.86 0.14 0.52 0.63 0.36 0.69 0.62
Money 0.34 0.56 0.36 0.59 0.51 0.60 0.49 0.54
Religion 0.17 0.17 0.06 0.34 0.39 0.19 0.22 0.45
Death 0.18 0.03 0.06 0.15 0.23 0.07 0.12 0.20
Spoken categories
Assent 0.11 0.07 0.08 0.64 0.19 3.61 0.78 0.76
Nonfluencies 0.19 0.13 0.06 0.32 0.14 0.73 0.26 0.35
Fillers 0.03 0.01 0.00 0.02 0.00 1.20 0.21 0.35
Punctuation
Total Punctuation 12.19 12.85 33.94 23.80 22.05 49.37 25.70 10.48
   Periods 6.12 6.60 11.73 10.66 5.51 9.81 8.41 4.16
   Commas 2.90 3.24 7.63 4.09 7.36 5.05 5.05 2.16
   Colons 0.05 0.58 0.21 0.73 0.16 0.07 0.30 0.74
   Semicolons 0.04 0.03 0.38 0.11 0.63 0.05 0.21 0.41
   Question marks 0.17 0.04 0.05 0.60 0.57 2.33 0.63 1.03
   Exclamation marks 0.12 0.07 0.00 1.27 0.46 0.21 0.36 0.70
   Dashes 0.32 0.45 2.54 1.11 1.60 0.75 1.13 1.65
   Quotation marks 0.27 0.21 0.18 0.71 3.39 0.17 0.82 0.82
   Apostrophes 1.69 0.95 0.16 2.37 2.11 3.82 1.85 1.50
   Parentheses 0.15 0.20 4.87 0.50 0.05 0.01 0.96 0.56
   Other punctuation 0.20 0.29 1.32 1.08 0.14 27.11 5.02 4.87

Note: Grand Means are the unweighted means of the six genres. Mean SDs refer to the unweighted mean of the standard deviations across the six genre categories. The LIWC dictionary generally arranges categories hierarchically. For example, all pronouns are included in the overarching category of function words. The cateory of pronouns is the sum of personal and impersonal pronouns. There are some exceptions to the hierarchy rules:

Common verbs are not included in the function word category. Similarly, common verbs (as opposed to auxiliary verbs) that are tagged by verb tense are included in the past, present, and future tense categories but not in the overall function word categories.

Social processes include a large group of words (originally used in LIWC2001) that denote social processes, including all non-first-person-singular personal pronouns as well as verbs that suggest human interaction (e.g., talking, sharing).

Perceptual processes include the entire dictionary of the Qualia category (which is a separate dictionary), which includes multiple sensory and perceptual dimensions associated with the five senses.

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