Alicia Romano and Colleen Orihill
2009
LIWC: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count
 Designed by James W. Pennebaker, Roger J. Booth, and Martha E.
Francis
 The 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 Works
 Analyzes .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.php
 Read 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. Rey
 Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss
 Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
 Pokey 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 Works
 User 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: Dictionaries
 General Inquirer tag categories come from four sources:
 Harvard IV-4 dictionary
 Lasswell value dictionary
 New constructions
 Marker 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 Magazine
Marie Clare
General Inquirer: Interface
General Inquirer: Desktop File
Data Source Input
General Inquirer: Example of Text
Aquarius 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: Results
wordcount
T&C AQUARIUS
161
s
161
MC AQUARIUS
100
s
100
T&C ARIES
99
s
99
MC ARIES
99
s
99
T&C CANCER
168
s
168
MC CANCER
99
s
99
T&C CAPRICORN
164
s
164
MC CAPRICORN
93
s
93
T&C GEMINI
173
s
173
MC GENINI
104
s
104
T&C LEO
172
s
172
MC LEO
105
s
105
Positiv
Negativ
Strong
Power
Weak
Active
Passive
7
4.347826
4
2.484472
19
11.80124
6
3.726708
4
2.484472
13
8.074534
7
4.347826
3
3
4
4
4
4
4
4
2
2
8
8
1
1
4
4.040404
1
1.010101
11
11.11111
3
3.030303
0
0
11
11.11111
1
1.010101
4
4.040404
1
1.010101
11
11.11111
3
3.030303
0
0
11
11.11111
1
1.010101
8
4.761905
2
1.190476
13
7.738095
4
2.380952
1
0.595238
8
4.761905
5
2.976191
1
1.010101
3
3.030303
7
7.070707
3
3.030303
0
0
7
7.070707
2
2.020202
7
4.268293
3
1.829268
19
11.58537
10
6.097561
2
1.219512
16
9.756098
2
1.219512
1
1.075269
4
4.301076
8
8.602151
3
3.225807
2
2.150538
5
5.376344
4
4.301076
11
6.358381
5
4.807693
7
4.069768
5
4.761905
3
1.734104
2
1.923077
2
1.162791
5
4.761905
18
10.40462
10
9.615385
15
8.72093
9
8.571428
6
3.468208
4
3.846154
3
1.744186
5
4.761905
2
1.156069
1
0.961538
0
0
2
1.904762
20
11.56069
7
6.730769
14
8.139535
7
6.666667
4
2.312139
1
0.961538
4
2.325581
5
4.761905