An Analysis of Structured Content, with Application of Electronic Computer Research, in Psycholinguistics

Abstract

Certain linguistic and psycholinguistic hypotheses require information readily derived only from the processing of numerous texts. The employment of electronic computers makes the testing of such hypotheses reasonably feasible; the machines also tend to relieve the researcher of the burden of compiling lists and reference indices “manually.” We have tested programming possibilities on a pilot sample. Two programmes which have proved successful are reported below: one designed to tally co-occurrences of units within frames, the other to yield-inventories of units.