The Language of Writing

I found the answer to a question that popped up several years ago. The basic argument was this: If male authors outsell women authors, then women authors should mask their sex and write like men. In the virtual world it’s easy to mask sex by choosing an androgynous or male pseudonym (which several female authors have done), posting no pictures or posting a picture of a male. In light of what I’ve discovered, posing as a male may not be useful. There is more than physical factors that define the difference between male and female authors. Men write differently than women. But how does men’s writing vary from women’s writing? What distinguishes it?

Intuitively, I thought of content. Very few men write romance, but then Nicolas Sparks has enjoyed success in that genre. In the mystery genre, Agatha Christie became as much an icon as Sir Arthur Cannon Doyle. My intuition failed me. Content wasn’t necessarily a factor—and yet it was a factor, but in a way I didn’t understand.

At about the same time, I read a blog (I forget which blog and who wrote the blog—my apologies to that blogger.) recommending a book, The Secret Life Of Pronouns, What Our Words Say About Us. Had I time to read the book during this period, I would have put two and two together and realized that the question and the book went hand in hand. I recently read the book and now understand what the author James W. Pennebaker’s research contributed to the argument. 

Dr. Pennebaker, a social psychologist, studies language to find out what our use of words says about us. Through many experimental trials, recording thousands of conversations and analyzing written works, Pennebaker determined that men and women speak differently. Our sentences are composed of nouns, verbs, modifiers, pronouns, articles, prepositions, etc. He categorized some words as Content Words: nouns, regular and action verbs and most modifiers. Everything else he categorized as Function/Style Words. We hear mainly Content Words, and yet when people talk to each other they use more Function/Style Words. How we use Function/Style Words can say a great deal about us from our socio-economic status to our emotional states.

Here are some of his conclusions: (Pennebaker Kindle 792)

·      Women use first-person singular pronouns more than men

·      Men and women use first-person plural words at the same rate

·      Men use articles more than do women

·      There are no differences in the use of positive emotion words

·      Women use more cognitive (understand, know, think or because reason, rationale) words than men (He also points out that Aristotle would be astonished since he thought women were less rational than men.)

·      Women use social words (words referring to society—people, family, they, parents, etc.) at far higher rates than men

·      Men use more “big” words, nouns, prepositions, numbers, more words per sentence and swear words

·      Women use more pronouns, verbs, negative emotion words, negations, certainty words (always, absolutely) and hedge phrases (I think, I believe).

Hedge phrases, Pennebaker points out aren’t necessarily negative. They reveal that women are more aware that their opinion is but one of many, whereas men are less aware of others’ opinions.

Here are some of the more generalized conclusions based on Pennebaker’s findings.

·      Young people speak more like women than men

·      At some point after twenty years of age, men and women’s speech diverges

·      As men and women age, that divergence diminishes. One would think that hormones could account for this diverge and converge, but his tests, which he admits are too narrow to make conclusions from, do not support the hormone theory.

In one chapter of the book, one that fascinated me, Pennebaker compares and analyzes several screenplay writers’ dialogue for male and female characteristics. Prototypical male representing 1 on the scale, and prototypical female as 9. I won’t present his findings, but it is clear that some writers overcompensate in male/female characterization. But, Pennebaker warns, if writers present their characters as too prototypical they may seem like cardboard characters. Pennebaker also analyzes politicians like Abraham Lincoln and John Kerry, discussions that explain election results.

His research also revealed that:

·      Until age twelve people have a positive self-image

·      From 13-20 people experience the lowest self-image in their lives

·      From 20 on, self-image gradually rises, so much so that 65 year olds and 9 year olds enjoy the same positive self-image

·      After 70, self-image declines.

Dr. Pennebaker’s observations and revealing facts were almost too numerous for me to assimilate as I put his information into my writing. I recommend all writers read this book because it is invaluable for characterization. Our dialogue reveals who the speakers are, their traits, emotional states, sex, education, etc. Pennebaker makes clear that how we speak and write is more important that what we say.

Several online gender tests are available online to test your writing. (Here’s one: http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php) Cut and paste sections from your manuscript into the test area to determine what gender you are writing. Some sections of my writing tested as male, some female, but most of the time, the analysis resulted in mixed results. It couldn’t determine my sex. In the mystery genre, I’m glad for that result. From Pennebaker’s findings, I conclude that I can change my writing so that it is more characteristically male, but as I age this will occur naturally—so perhaps will my chance for greater sales. It’s all up from here.