The vocabulary of anglophone psychology in the context of other subjects.

Benjafield, John G.

doi:10.1037/a0030532

Cited by 14 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 90 publications

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“…For purposes of the present study, earlier versions of the vocabularies of biology, chemistry, computing, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, physics, and psychology from Benjafield (2012Benjafield ( , 2013Benjafield ( , 2014Benjafield ( , 2016Benjafield ( , 2019a were updated using the OED Online (2020). The vocabularies of astronomy, economics, political science, and sociology were newly assembled for this study, also using the OED Online (2020).…”

Section: Compilation Of Vocabulariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vocabulary sharing among subjects belonging to the hierarchy of sciences

Benjafield

2020

Scientometrics

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To what extent do the vocabularies of mathematics, computing, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, economics, political science, philosophy, and linguistics overlap? To explore this question, samples of the anglophone vocabularies of these subjects were created using the Oxford English Dictionary (Benjafield in Scientometrics 118:1051–1064, 2019. 10.1007/s11192-019-03021-2). The first part of this study compared the vocabularies of the five empirical members of Comte’s hierarchy of the sciences (HoS) plus psychology (i.e., astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology). The results were generally consistent with the existence of an empirical HoS. For example, each subject shared its vocabulary the most with another subject adjacent to it in the hierarchy (i.e., astronomy with physics, physics with chemistry, biology with chemistry, psychology with biology, sociology with psychology). The second part of this study examined patterns of sharing between mathematics, computing, economics, political science, philosophy, linguistics and the six members of the empirical HoS. Among the most interesting results was the high degree of vocabulary sharing between mathematics, philosophy, and linguistics. Indeed, it turns out that all subjects share their vocabularies with all other subjects, to varying degrees. It was suggested that, in addition to comparing subjects in terms of a linear HoS, similarities between subjects should be examined independently of their position on the HoS.

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Section: Compilation Of Vocabulariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vocabulary sharing among subjects belonging to the hierarchy of sciences

Benjafield

2020

Scientometrics

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“…Given its mix of technical and popular publications, the corpus furnishes an opportunity to consider the historical place of psychology's vocabulary within English-language discourse. Thus far, this issue has been broached using qualitative methods (Danziger, 1997) as well as the quantitative analysis of the PsycINFO and Oxford English Dictionary databases (Benjafield, 2012(Benjafield, , 2013(Benjafield, , 2014. One can visualize how "behavior" came to replace "conduct" by 1940 as the preeminent way of discussing human activity well beyond the confines of disciplinary psychology (see Figure 3).…”

Section: Cultural History and Eventful Psychologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical time in the age of big data: Cultural psychology, historical change, and the Google Books Ngram Viewer.

Pettit

2016

History of Psychology

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Launched in 2010, the Google Books Ngram Viewer offers a novel means of tracing cultural change over time. This digital tool offers exciting possibilities for cultural psychology by rendering questions about variation across historical time more quantitative. Psychologists have begun to use the viewer to bolster theories about a historical shift in the United States from a more collectivist to individualist form of selfhood and society. I raise 4 methodological cautions about the Ngram Viewer's use among psychologists: (a) the extent to which print culture can be taken to represent culture as a whole, (b) the difference between viewing the past in terms of trends versus events, (c) assumptions about the stability of a word's meaning over time, and (d) inconsistencies in the scales and ranges used to measure change over time. The aim is to foster discussion about the standards of evidence needed for incorporating historical big data into empirical research.

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“…For one thing, it would require psychologists to move away from using ordinary language, which has been the main source of their core vocabulary (Benjafield, 2013;Richards, 1989). Currently, psychology's use of ordinary language makes of it a subject that is relatively easy for ordinary people to appreciate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns of similarity and difference between the vocabularies of psychology and other subjects.

Benjafield¹

2014

History of Psychology

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The vocabulary of Anglophone psychology is shared with many other subjects. Previous research using the Oxford English Dictionary has shown that the subjects having the most words in common with psychology are biology, chemistry, computing, electricity, law, linguistics, mathematics, medicine, music, pathology, philosophy, and physics. The present study presents a database of the vocabularies of these 12 subjects that is similar to one previously constructed for psychology, enabling the histories of the vocabularies of these subjects to be compared with each other as well as with psychology. All subjects have a majority of word senses that are metaphorical. However, psychology is not among the most metaphorical of subjects, a distinction belonging to computing, linguistics, and mathematics. Indeed, the history of other subjects shows an increasing tendency to recycle old words and give them new, metaphorical meanings. The history of psychology shows an increasing tendency to invent new words rather than metaphorical senses of existing words. These results were discussed in terms of the degree to which psychology's vocabulary remains unsettled in comparison with other subjects. The possibility was raised that the vocabulary of psychology is in a state similar to that of chemistry prior to Lavoisier.

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The vocabulary of anglophone psychology in the context of other subjects.

Cited by 14 publications

References 90 publications

Vocabulary sharing among subjects belonging to the hierarchy of sciences

Vocabulary sharing among subjects belonging to the hierarchy of sciences

Historical time in the age of big data: Cultural psychology, historical change, and the Google Books Ngram Viewer.

Patterns of similarity and difference between the vocabularies of psychology and other subjects.

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