James W. Pennebaker

This book contains some Chaz Bono-level anecdotal evidence about the effects of testosterone on behavior. I kind of wanted to cry when I read the following (but maybe I've got too much naturally-occuring testosterone coursing through my biologically-female (or whatever) veins preventing me from crying, or using social pronouns).

And I quote:

"For a variety of reasons, both men and women occasionally undergo testosterone therapy, whereby they are given periodic injections of the hormone. What show more would happen to their language during times when their testosterone levels were high versus when they were low? Through an odd series of events, I was able to answer the question." (57)

How does Pennebaker answer this question? He looks at the writing of two people: one 28yo transguy taking T to transition and one 60yo non-trans guy taking T to"restore his upper body strength" (58)

Now that's rigorous science, folks. Wait, though, there's more.

"...there was one fascinating and reliable difference--in social pronouns (including words like we, us, he, she, they, and them). As testosterone levels dropped, they used more social pronouns. Think what this means: Both GH and the anthropologist inject themselves with testosterone and they now focus on tasks, goals, events, and the occasional object--but not people." (58)

Is this really a RELIABLE sample? Two people?

"It is news because these language differences signal that men tend to talk and think about concrete objects and things in highly specific ways. They are naturally categorizing things... a man naturally categorize and assigns objects to spatial relations at rates higher than women."

Please can we go back to the 90s when people had heard of social construction of identity?

PS: The Gender Genie http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php score for this review (minus quotations) is: Female Score: 54 Male Score: 111. Take that, Pennebaker. show less

Pennebaker either wrote an extremely boring book about a fascinating subject, or an extremely fascinating book about a boring subject. Clearly he's excited about this topic, but I'm just not sure it was worth writing an entire book about it. For me, it comes close to being interesting. Word usage, word choices, and what that says about us is interesting. Data analysis of the same, also interesting. Does this require an entire volume dedicated to the topic? Probably not. If I would have read show more a long web article on this, I probably would have felt justified in the 30 minutes or so I spent on it. As it was, it just dragged on a little too long. That said, it was well written and his passion and enthusiasm comes through and helps us (the readers) get to the finish line at the end. show less

My family laughed at me when they found out I was reading a book about the secret life of pronouns—what secrets could pronouns possibly have, anyway?—but the concept that the "nothing words" of language can be a mirror into individuals' lives was fascinating to me.

I was somewhat disappointed to discover, however, that a person's word usage is so subtle that it takes a computer program to find these connections. I can't just walk down a street, strike up a conversation with a random show more stranger, and within 10 minutes be able to tell if the person is arrogant, depressed, insecure, or lying, simply by paying attention to word nuances.

We all know that words have a huge affect on our lives, but the point this book repeatedly makes is not that words shape us, but rather that our words—particularly the function words that no one notices—reflect who we are, what motivates us, and how we think. Despite our efforts to hide aspects of our personalities, our words shout out to the world startling insights anyway; fortunately, though, no one realizes just how much our words are saying about us.

By reading this book, I had hoped to learn how to become a better ghost writer and how to manipulate the tone of my writing for various projects. I didn't exactly get that, but the book was fascinating nonetheless. show less

I would be hard-pressed to think of a geekier book title, but it's perfect. I was so happy to win this book on Early Reviewers. I love psychology and I love language. Pennebaker does an admirable job of going in depth and clearly explaining nuances and implications of his findings while keeping the material flowing and not getting bogged down in technical or other issues. He is careful and consistent in disclaiming that most of these really intriguing insights into how we use language are show more correlations, and that whereas they are useful in describing, they are difficult to use in predicting.

Some of the magic is evident in considering that along with computer word counts finding these patterns, our brains' implicit processes can similarly identify patterns of language an interlocutor and adapt, even though we are not consciously aware during conversation of how we and others use "function" words.

I never expected to be dog-earing and underlining in a book like this. I especially enjoyed the sections on coping with trauma and on the language of deception (reading about performatives was my favorite "huh, how about that?" moment). show less