Thanks for sharing, John!

I found this excerpt particularly interesting. It's worth pondering.

--

*PENNEBAKER:* One of the most fascinating effects I’ve seen in quite awhile
is that we can predict people’s college performance reasonably well by
simply analyzing their college admissions essays. Across four years, we
analyzed the admissions essays of 25,000 students and then tracked their
grade point averages (GPAs). Higher GPAs were associated with admission
essays that used high rates of nouns and low rates of verbs and pronouns.
The effects were surprisingly strong and lasted across all years of college,
no matter what the students’ major.

To me, the use of nouns -- especially concrete nouns -- reflects people’s
attempts to categorize and name objects, events, and ideas in their worlds.
The use of verbs and pronouns typically occur when people tell stories.
Universities clearly reward categorizers rather than story tellers. If true,
can we train young students to categorize more? Alternatively, are we
relying too much on categorization strategies in American education?

--

I think this article highlights a wonderful example of how language
analysis, grammar teaching, and writing all go hand-in-hand. It also reminds
me that students would benefit from more of an introduction to cognition and
how our language choices are motivated in both speech and writing.

John Alexander




On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 3:08 AM, John Crow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Check out the following article from *Scientific American.  *Be sure to
> scroll down the comments at the end of the article to the one about the
> pivotal role grammar plays.  Right now, it's the last comment:
>
> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-language-code
>
> John
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