The Words We Use Are a Reflection of Our Inner World
Have you ever asked yourself just how important words are? They exist in order to explain the meaning of objects and situations, in a way that the person who hears them will participate in shared information. With words, we communicate with others, express ourselves and understand each other. Keep in mind that expressing what we feel with a high degree of precision is, among other things, what really makes us human.
Thus, language has a tremendous influence in the results of our projects or in the way that our relationships develop. In the same manner, observing how an individual speaks gives us a lot of information about their thoughts, attitudes and beliefs.
According to the psychologist, James W. Pennebaker, researcher at the University of Texas, the way we use words through spoken and written language says a lot more about who we are and our psychological state than the actual content.
Pennebaker has been analyzing written and spoken speeches for 20 years. His conclusion is that the functional aspects of a sentence, such as pronouns, can say much more about our mood, how we think and who we are than any verb or noun.
For this researcher, the key resides in pronouns, prepositions and articles which, though they might seem to not have much semantic importance, add up to half of the words we use every day. They are very revealing of our centers of attention.
Articles, prepositions, pronouns. Words that we give importance to, because we think that they only serve to string ideas along. However, the form and frequency in which we use them says a lot about us.
