Professor James Pennebaker and The Secret Life of Pronouns

Looks like another episode of Dinner with the O-Bots! Adam went to another O-Bot dinner in Austin. This time his friend Professor James Pennebaker was in attendance. You might remember he is the author of the interesting book, The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us. Through this book, No Agenda listeners have learned about performatives often used by politicians in order to diffuse or lie about the upcoming statement. John Dvorak considers them ‘disclaimers’.  An example performative could be, “I’m going to tell you about X”. These are heavily used by politicians – Bill Clinton was a master at using them.

Adam reported that he has improved his LIWC. This is a web platform that analyzes text to help reveal the writers “thoughts, feelings, personality and motivations”. His services are sought after by intelligence services.

Get a copy on Amazon.

[NA 771 :04]

This book was previously covered in June 2013.