From Thomas Jefferson’s “All men are created equal” to John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” simple words strung together in distinctive ways have the power to move people. But imagine if Jefferson instead said, “Each person is not worse than the next,” or Kennedy rephrased to “Don’t just take for yourself but give to your country” — would these quotes have become just as famous?

从托马斯·杰斐逊的“人人生而平等”,到约翰·F·肯尼迪的“不要问国家能为你做些什么,而要问你能为国家做些什么”,寥寥数语,字字珠玑,拥有足以叩问人心的力量。想象一下,如果杰斐逊说的是:“每个人都不比别人差。”或者肯尼迪的那句话换成“别总想着给自己捞好处,应该为国家多做贡献。”还会像原话那样变成四海流传的名言吗?

People’s word choices can reveal such things as their mental health, ability to persuade or even if they’ll default on a loan. A company’s choice of pronouns can affect a customer’s experience and whether it will lead to a purchase. Words used by the media influence how the public thinks about social issues like casino gambling. And the placement of gender — men and women vs. women and men — affect whom the reader believes is on top.

遣词造句透露了一个人的精神健康状况、说服他人的能力,甚至可以预测这个人有没有可能欠账。一家公司对人称代词的选择会影响客户体验,决定着顾客是否会购买产品。媒体的选词影响着公众对社会问题的看法,比如对赌场的态度。性别词汇的先后顺序,比如是男女还是女男,影响着读者对何人处于支配位置的判断。

“The whole world of text analysis is so exciting,” said James Pennebaker, psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin who co-developed the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) system, which is widely used for text analysis. He said word analysis is more reliable than asking people to document what they are thinking or feeling because these “self-reports are poorly related to real world behaviors.”

“文本分析这个领域总是惊喜不断。”德克萨斯大学心理学教授彭尼贝克是语言查询与字数统计系统的开发者之一。这个系统被广泛用于文本分析。他表示,词汇分析比直接让人们把自己的所思所想所感记录下来可靠得多。因为“自我描述与他在真实世界中的行为关联不大。”

“Self-reports are self-theories. They are theories about who we think we are,” continued Pennebaker, a keynote speaker at the conference. People cling to certain narratives about themselves and as such, “to change a self-theory is really hard. That is why language [analysis] is interesting.” Language betrays what the speaker or writer is truly feeling, even on a subconscious level, much like a Freudian slip betrays one’s real thoughts.

彭尼贝克也是本次大会的主旨发言人。他说:“自述(self-reports)属于自我取向(self-theories)。这些取向反映了我们自认为是谁。”想要改变叙述者对自我的认知很困难。“想要改变自我取向真的很难。这也是语言分析的有趣之处。”语言背叛了说话者或者作者的真实感受,甚至是下意识层面的感受,就像弗洛伊德式错误,背叛了一个人真正的想法。

Today, as social media, mobile apps and web technologies fuel an explosion of virtual conversations, text analysis is having a field day. “This is the beauty of Big Data,” Pennebaker said. “It’s allowing us to see things we haven’t seen before.”

今天,作为社交媒体的移动应用、网络技术为虚拟对话的爆炸式增长大开方便之门。文本分析在这种背景下可谓正当时。“这就是大数据之美。”彭尼贝克说:“我们由此可知以前所不知的东西。”

The importance of word choices, as well as how words are frxd, is exemplified by their ability to influence public debates, with widespread implications for society. Lillian Lee, a professor at Cornell University interested in natural language processing and social interaction, cited as an example the words used in the debate over genetically modified foods.

遣词造句有着影响公众议题的能力,会对社会产生深远的影响,这更凸显了它的重要性。康奈尔大学的李教授主要从事自然语言加工与社会互动研究。她引用了关于转基因食品争论中的一些词汇。
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Supporters call it a “green revolution,” connoting sustainability, which is a good thing. But detractors call it “Frankenfood,” framing it in terms of an out-of-control monster created by science. “There are people putting a lot of thought into trying to use phrasing to get the public to think about issues a certain way,” Lee said. “Public opinion matters.”

支持者将之称为“绿色革命”,令人联想到可持续发展,这是积极的事情。但唱衰者则称其为“弗兰肯食物”,将转基因食品塑造成科学手段制造出来的失控的怪物。“有很多人费尽心思地抠字眼,就想引导公众往某个方向想。”李说:“公众意见很重要。”

Ashlee Humphreys, a journalism professor at Northwestern University, took three decades’ worth of archived articles from the nation’s largest newspapers to understand why public outrage over casino gambling has changed over time.

西北大学新闻学教授汉弗莱斯则翻出30年以来的报纸存档,从国内发行量最大的报纸入手,研究公众对赌场的态度为何从一开始的极为反感发生了变化。

When the idea first arose of cities building casinos as a revenue generator, people were concerned that it would lead to mass gambling addictions and increased crime in their neighborhoods. To gauge sentiment, she analyzed categories of words used in the stories at the time. Words such as ethical, bible and law signified ‘purity’; guilty, illegal, arrested and sin, denoted ‘filth’; junket, limo and yacht signaled ‘wealth’; welfare, slum and ghetto spoke of ‘poverty.’

当年,政府刚刚提出通过修建赌场增加收入时,人们担心会引起普遍的赌博成瘾现象,增加周边犯罪发生率。为探查当时公众的情绪,汉弗莱斯对当时相关报道的用词进行了分类研究。诸如伦理、圣经、法度等词传达的是“纯净”;而犯罪、非法、逮捕和罪恶等词则是在表达“污秽”;公费旅游、豪华轿车、游艇传递“财富”的意思;福利、贫民窟、贫民区则是“贫穷”的代言词。

Over time, the use of ‘filth’ words decreased. “People were no longer talking about casino gambling in terms of good and evil,” Humphreys said. The news story became more about local governments raising tax revenue from casinos. “A more ‘rational’ discourse took hold as the ‘purity’ and ‘filthy’ discourse waned and was about on par with ‘wealth’ and ‘poverty,’” she said. “As this happened, casinos became more legitimate.”

随着时间的推移,“污秽”一类的用词越来越少。“人们不再提起赌场是好的或者是坏的了。”汉弗莱斯说。新闻中关于当地政府通过赌场增加税收的报道多了起来。“一种更为‘理性’的话语占了上风,关于‘纯净’或‘污秽’的话语则日渐衰落。关于‘财富’和‘贫穷’的话语则各占一半。”她说:“这样一来,赌场的合理性就基本确立了。”

Humphreys also looked at the declining public outrage around oil spills. She looked at the massive 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (which spawned a movie called Deepwater Horizon). Right after the spill, BP’s stock dropped by 40%, public support for offshore drilling fell, and consumer confidence also dipped.

汉弗莱斯还关注了公众对原油泄漏问题的愤怒逐渐平息的过程。她研究了2010年BP石油公司在墨西哥湾发生大规模原油泄漏事故一事(经由此事故改编成影片《深海浩劫》)。泄露发生之初,BP股价重挫40%,公众对远洋钻探的支持度猛跌,消费者信心指数也一落千丈。

Two years later, people forgot about the spill and sentiment recovered. Overall oil production also exceeded pre-accident levels. BP’s stock price rebounded to 80% of its pre-spill value, and public support for off-shore drilling went back to near pre-accident levels. Consumer trust in the energy industry came back as well.

两年之后,人们将此次泄露事故抛在脑后,各种情绪得以平复。原油产量甚至超过了事故发生前水平。BP股价重回泄露前股价的80%,公众对远洋石油钻探的支持度也基本回升到事故发生前水平。消费者对能源产业的信心指数也良好回升。
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“The question is, why did this happen? Why didn’t people stay upset?” Humphreys asked. “What media narratives are used to explain and contain these fears?” To find the answer, she compared news coverage of the BP oil spill to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 in Alaska. With Exxon, the “cultural narratives and public templates had to be worked out — how do you deal with such a disaster? This kept Exxon in the news much longer.”

“问题是为什么会这样?为什么人们的愤愤不平没有一直持续下去?”汉弗莱斯问道:“如何利用媒体的话语来解读和控制各种担忧?”为了找到答案,她对BP原油泄漏事件的新闻报道和1989年埃克森·瓦尔迪兹号在阿拉斯加的石油泄漏事件报道进行了对比。在埃克森事件中,“文化叙述和公共模板不同:你们要如何应对此类灾难?这也导致埃克森事件在新闻报道中停留的时间长得多。”

With BP, the media brought up the consequences of past oil spills — such as lawsuits and government fines for Exxon — and then closed the issue. “A year out, nobody was talking about oil anymore. That’s not where the discourse moved,” Humphreys said. News coverage shifted to containing the spill, investigating the causes of the accident and focusing on the folks responsible.

而到了BP事件中,媒体提到了此前石油泄漏事件的一些后果,比如埃克森公司官司缠身、政府罚款等等,然后这事情就算画上了句号。“不出一年,没人再谈论原油泄漏了。话语并没有向这个领域引导。”汉弗莱斯说道。新闻报道的重点转向如何控制泄露范围、调查事故发生原因,以及谁该为此负责。

Something similar is happening to public opinion about the legalization of marijuana. Pot is currently legally cleared for medical use in 30 states and recreational use in eight states, Humphreys said. The image of marijuana users is slowly changing, from lazy stoners to health buffs as the plant is increasingly being incorporated into legitimate products like chocolate bars and body butters. “We see growing emergence, acceptance,” she said.

公众对于大麻合法化的看法也有比较类似的变化。汉弗莱斯介绍说,目前美国30个州的法律允许将大麻用于治疗,8个州允许将其用于康复。而大麻使用者的形象也在缓慢的发生着变化:从懒惰的瘾君子变成了健康专家。这是因为大麻这种东西越来越多地被作为合法产品的原料之一,比如巧克力棒、身体乳等等。她说:“我们看到,越来越多人对此表示接受。”

Linguistic ordering of genders can also affect how the public views who is more powerful. According to research by Selin Kesebir, professor of organisational behaviour at the London Business School, if a man is mentioned before a woman, he is seen to be in a more dominant or central position — and vice versa.

性别词汇在言语中的先后顺序,也可能影响公众对谁拥有更大权力的看法。伦敦商学院组织行为学教授凯斯博认为,如果先提到一名男性,后提到一名女性,那么这位男性似乎更可能处于支配地位或者比较核心的位置。反之亦然。

In an experiment, Kesebir showed two versions of a news article about townspeople protesting a power plant proposal. In one version, the story said “some of the town’s men and women are out on the streets.” The other version reversed the genders, “some of the town’s women and men are out on the streets.”

在一项实验中,凯斯博拿出了两篇新闻稿,内容都是关于小镇居民抗议修建发电厂的事情。一篇报道中写道:“该镇一些男性和女性走上街头。”另一篇报道中则将性别词语做了个调换:“该镇一些女性和男性走上街头。”

When readers were asked which gender played a more central role in the protest, 66% of those who read “men and women” chose the men. Among those who read the version with “women and men,” 71% said women played a more central role. These results have implications for how public perceptions can be influenced based on the placement of language.

研究人员询问读者,在抗议中是男性还是女性发挥了核心作用?读到“男性和女性”的读者中有66%选择了男性。而读到“女性和男性”的读者中有71%认为女性发挥了更核心的作用。上述结果显示,公众认知可能会受到语序的影响。
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Word choice also has a profound impact on one’s ability to persuade, according to Cornell’s Lee. Being persuasive is a handy skill whether it is to prevail in business meetings or getting your kids to go to bed on time. Lee analyzed the posts and threads in an online debating forum called ChangeMyView on Reddit. Users would post opinions and explain why they hold these beliefs. Other people would post counter-arguments to try to change their minds. The successful post would be flagged with a delta symbol.

康奈尔大学的李教授认为,斟词酌句关系到一个人是否具有说服他人的能力。无论是想在商业会议中占据优势,还是让孩子乖乖按时上床睡觉,说服力都是一项十分有用的技能。她对在线辩论论坛“在Reddit上改变我的观点吧”上的帖子进行了一番分析。在这个论坛上,用户可以发布观点,解释持有这种观点的理由。其他人则可以发帖反驳,努力说服发帖者改变看法。成功改变别人看法的帖子会得到一个delta标志。

Lee discovered that successful counter-arguments are ones that provide new information, but were communicated in a style similar to the original writer of the post. “They told me something I didn’t know before,” she said. However, it does pay to know when to stop — people who kept arguing didn’t change minds. “Too much back and forth equals lost cause,” Lee said. “If you go on that long, stop talking. The kind of people who keep going that long aren’t necessarily the kind of people who are persuasive.”

李发现,成功反驳他人观点的帖子都是那些提供了新的信息、但行文表达的方式与帖主类似的帖子。“他们告诉了我一些以前不知道的事情。”她说到。知道何时停止非常重要。一直在和别人争论的人,无法改变他人的观点。“太多争论会令人迷失。如果你们发展到那个地步,那就停止讨论。一味咄咄逼人的人并不具有强大的说服力。”

Paul DiMaggio, sociology professor at New York University, also looked at persuasiveness but in a corporate setting. He analyzed the discussions at a Fortune 500 company’s online conversation to brainstorm solutions to global challenges faced by the company. There was no anonymity — everyone had to register. Moderators did not remove or edit posts. Out of more than 31,000 comments only 282 were sexted for further development. Why were they singled out?

纽约大学社会学教授迪马乔也对说服力进行过研究,只不过是在公司环境下。他分析了一家财富500强公司在线对话中的讨论。这项活动旨在通过脑力激荡为公司面临的全球挑战找到解决方案。这项活动不允许匿名参与,每个人都要注册。组织者不会对帖子进行编辑或者删帖。在超过3.1万条评论中,只有282条被选出来等待进一步探讨。那么,是什么因素让这282条被选中呢?

By applying text analysis to the chosen comments, DiMaggio discovered that successful posts were of higher quality (longer, more thoughtful, generated more discussion, the writer took time to respond) or they were focused on core topics important to the company. There also was one unexpected finding: Successful posts tended to be ones that were different in style from executives. So mimicking the way the top brass talked didn’t work. He also found out that men were not favored, nor were executives.

迪马乔通过对选中评论进行文本分析发现,成功入选的评论文字质量较高(更长、更有想法、能够激发更多讨论、发帖者会花时间耐心回复),或者紧扣公司的重要议题。另外,研究者还有一个意外发现:成功入选的帖子在行文风格上往往与高管不同。所以说,一味模仿老板的说话方式并不奏效。他发现,男性并没有特别受到照顾,高管也没有享受特殊待遇。

How about the discarded comments? DiMaggio discovered that hasty responses typically were not chosen. Posts that had a high level of excitement also didn’t get an edge. Displaying pride at being an employee had no bearing on being chosen. Responses from the U.S. also generally were not favored.

那么,那些被放弃的评论又是如何呢?迪马乔发现,草草回复通常不会入选。夺人眼球的回复也不占优势。表达成为公司员工而感到非常自豪的帖子也对入选没有帮助。来自美国的回复一般也没有特别受到关注。
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Another insight about words is that they can predict popular success. That’s a finding by Grant Packard, marketing professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, and Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger. Packard presented results from their paper “Are Atypical Songs More Popular?” at the conference.

关于词语的另一个洞见,则是可以通过词汇的选择预测某个事物的受欢迎程度。发现这一现象的是加拿大劳里埃大学市场营销学教授帕卡德和沃顿商学院市场营销学教授贝格尔。帕卡德在会上介绍了他们的研究报告“是否存在某类更受欢迎的歌曲?”

Their research used text analysis and natural language processing methods to determine why some songs become more popular than others. They pulled the lyrics of the top 50 Billboard songs for every three months spanning three years for each of the seven major genres (Christian, country, dance, pop, rap, rock and R&B). Their data set also included the artist, promotional activity and support, as well as radio airplay.

他们在研究中采用文本分析、自然语言处理方法,揭示为什么一些歌曲比其他歌曲更受人们的欢迎。他们按照7种音乐类型(福音、乡村、舞曲、流行、说唱、摇滚、R&B)分类,锁定3年内每三个月排名Billboard排行榜前50的歌曲,并把所有歌词抽取出来。此外还将歌手、宣传与支持、电台播放情况等纳入数据当中。

What they found was that songs that shot up the charts were more unique than other songs in the same genre. And it doesn’t take much: A 16% differentiation is enough to make a song move one notch up the charts. “Subtle variation in lyrical topics produces a relatively big incremental in commercial success,” Packard said. These results hold true even if the songs varied by artist, promotional activity and other factors.

他们发现,能够上榜的歌曲在同类歌曲中具有比较鲜明的差异性,而做到这一点并不难:16%的差异化足以让一首歌的排位上升一名。“在歌词主题上的略微改变,就能取得相对明显的商业成功。”帕卡德说道。而艺人、推广活动等因素的差异,也能取得类似的效果。

However, songs cannot be too different or else they turn off the listener. “We look for novelty and experience,” Packard said. “We want things that are known to us but novel to make us engage further. It needs to fit with our experience but push us slightly away from it. … Novelty has to be distinguished by the bounds of our own experience.” For example, a blue rubber duck will attract people because it’s not the typical yellow — as long as it retains the shape and texture of the original.

但是,歌曲如果过于标新立异会吓跑听众。“我们要兼顾创新与经验。”帕卡德说:“我们喜欢熟悉的东西,新意则能让我们继续保持关注。歌曲需要符合人们的一般经验,但同时又能带给人以新鲜感……要在我们的现有经验基础上求新。”比如,蓝色橡皮鸭就很夺人眼球,因为它不是我们常见的黄色鸭子,但却仍然保留了鸭子的外表形状与纹路。

Lee came to a similar conclusion with another experiment she ran involving movie quotes. She tried to discover why certain movie quotes go viral while others are forgettable. Lee found out that “on average, memorable quotes significantly contain more surprising combination of words. … When things are unusual, people remember them.” However, the sentences tend to be simpler in structure. For instance, she said, “you’re gonna need a bigger boat” is more memorable than “you’re going to need a boat that is bigger.”

李则通过对电影台词的研究得出了类似的结论。她希望了解为什么某些影片的某句台词会变成流行语,而其它的则会被遗忘。她发现“平均来说,让人印象深刻的台词基本上都会包含一些令人意想不到的词语组合……人们总是倾向于记住不寻常的东西。”但是,这些爆款台词的结构一般都比较简洁。比如,“你需要一艘大点儿的船。”肯定比“你需要一艘船,大一点的那种。”更能让人记住。

Emotional volatility also predicts how movies will fare, according to other research by Berger. He studied movie scenes and plotted their emotional trajectory using text analysis and natural language processing. He discovered that movies that are more emotionally volatile — they have higher peaks and lower lows — overall get higher ratings. Berger said that a 10% increase in emotional volatility translates to a 1% increase in ratings. However, he cautioned that if a movie whipsaws audiences too often with highs and lows, it backfires. Viewers get exhausted.

贝格尔的另一项研究还显示,情感波动性也能预测影片是否卖座。贝格尔利用文本分析和自然语言处理方法分析影片场景和情节,对影片的情感轨迹进行了研究。他发现影片如果在情感波动上体现得更加明显,也就是更为跌宕起伏,一般来说会得到较高的评分。贝格尔说,增加10%的情感波动能够将评分提升1%。但是他也警告说,如果电影故意制造太多的高潮和低谷,则会适得其反。观众会感到精疲力尽。

There’s also research showing that social media chatter can help predict a person’s mental and physical health. Lyle Ungar, professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, parsed through troves of Facebook data to measure psychological traits. “How does language inform what we can learn about people?” he asked.

还有研究显示,社交媒体上的闲聊内容能够预测一个人的精神和身体健康水平。宾夕法尼亚大学计算机与信息科学教授昂加尔对脸书的数据进行了语言学分析,用来评估用户的心理学特征。“如何通过语言传达的信息了解一个人?”他问到。

Words people use can predict their gender 92% of the time, Ungar said. For example, women tend to use the following words on Facebook more often: shopping, excited, “love you,” yay and birthday. Men tend to use more profanity as well as the words Xbox, girlfriend, war, YouTube and PS3. Words can also help pinpoint whether someone is extraverted: They use words or phrases like “can’t wait,” chillin, party, weekend, girls. Introverts favor anime, internet, manga, computer, sigh, Pokemon and others.

我们可以通过一个人使用的词汇猜测此人的性别,准确率达到92%。比如,女性在脸书上更经常使用下列词汇:购物、开心、“爱你”、耶以及生日。男性更经常使用亵渎神灵、Xbox、女朋友、战争、油管以及PS3。言语还能帮我们判断一个人是否外向:这一类人会使用“等不及啦”、轻松一下、聚会、周末、女孩等等。而内向的人则喜欢用动漫、网络、漫画、电脑、哎、口袋妖怪之类的。

Word choice can also pinpoint mental health, Ungar discovered. More neurotic people tend to post online that they are “sick of” or hate something. Other words they use more often are kill, dead, bloody, alone, bored and stupid. Less neurotic people talk about religion and sports, use phrases such as “life is good” and “beautiful day,” and use words like beach, success, workout, soccer, church and blessed.

昂加尔还发现,词语的选择还能反映一个人的精神健康状况。比较神经质的人会在网上表达“反感”、讨厌某个事物。其他一些经常使用的词包括:杀、死、血淋淋、独自、没劲、愚蠢等。而不太神经质的人会更多探讨宗教和运动,使用“生活多么美好”、“美好的一天”等等,以及海滩、成功、健身、足球、教堂、保佑等词汇。

People with high stress talk online about pain, anxiety, being tired, hurting, depression and headaches. Low-stress people convey enthusiasm about today, vacations, breakfast and being “pumped.” “Why is this useful? We can estimate people’s personality and how this personality correlates with behavior, such as showing up in the hospital” if they’re sick and being willing to take care of themselves, Ungar said.

压力水平较高的人会在网络上表达痛苦、焦虑、疲惫、受到伤害、压抑、头疼。压力较少的人会传递乐观,提到度假、早饭以及“充满能量”。“为什么说这些分析很有用?因为我们可以据此预测他人的性格,以及这种性格与行为有何关联,比如去医院看病,或者愿意好好照顾自己等等,”昂加尔说道。

Another business application of text analysis is predicting cultural fit. Amir Goldberg, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University, used text analysis to examine what makes an employee fit in better with an organization. Specifically, he tested to see which trait was better for the employee: perceptual accuracy — the ability to accurately read the corporate culture — or value congruence, the worker’s personality being already similar to the company’s culture. (For instance, a Type A personality would fit in with a hard-charging, driven company.)

文本分析在商业上的另一个应用是预测文化契合度。斯坦福大学组织行为学教授戈尔德贝格利用文本分析来考察员工如何才能更好地融入组织。具体来说,他测试的是什么才是更理想的员工性格:认知精确性,也就是能够精确解读公司文化的能力;还是价值观契合度,即员工性格与企业文化本身就很类似。(例如,A型人格很可能适合一家进取心强的公司。)

For his research, Goldberg looked through seven years of emails sent and received by more than 1,200 employees at a midsized U.S. tech firm. He used linguistic models to measure behavioral fit. Goldberg found out that the ability to accurately read the corporate culture and adjust one’s linguistics accordingly makes an employee a better fit. “Perceptual accuracy is more consequential for the ability to read the cultural code and behave compliantly than value congruence,” he said. “Peers matter. Culture is learned from those with whom one interacts.”

戈尔德贝格在研究中对一家美国中型科技企业7年以来1200多名员工收发的电子邮件进行了调查。他采用语言学模型对员工的行为契合度进行评测并发现:能够精确解读公司文化、并相应调整自己遣词造句的能力,会让员工更好地融入公司。“认知精确性比价值观契合度更能影响员工对公司文化的解码能力和随之产生的行为。”他说:“同事很重要。文化是在与人互动的过程中学习的。”