No abstract

No abstract

An investigation of the person's verbal behavior should throw considerable light on the way he tackles the business of living. Particularly in our wordy culture is language likely to reveal personal adjustment, for a large proportion of our adaptations is purely verbal in nature and an even larger proportion depends in some degree upon linguistic mechanisms. The present paper is an exploration of linguistic individuality. Through the intensive study of the speech of two subjects, Chatwell and Merritt, it presents and evaluates a method for dealing with linguistic style, and attempts to paint an objective picture of the linguistic traits characterizing these two individuals.Almost any observer would say that Chatwell and Merritt are quite dissimilar individuals, that they differ widely in their verbal demeanor, that it would be hard to imagine Chatwell with Merritt's style of speaking or Merritt with Chatwell's. At the level of impression each has a unique manner of speaking, rooted deep in the personality. Such impressions of style are rich and convincing, but they are always somewhat unsatisfactory, for all you can do with an impression is to have it. The present study, proceeding by analysis and quantification, describing style in terms that can be communicated, tested, built upon, seeks to transform impressions into knowledge.To be sure, the style that survives statistical analysis seems less rich and less complete than the style we intuitively perceive in talking with these men. The calculating machine misses a great deal that would register on the human brain, and the delicate texture of style appears to be easily injured by our crude analytical devices. But an analytical and quantitative picture of the individual's manner of speaking, though it may lack the subtler shades of the original.

No abstract

No abstract