Social Anxiety and Word Use: How Environments Can Influence Words Page: 3

                                
Running head: ANXIETY INDUCED WORDS

Social Anxiety and Language: Gender Differences of Word Use
Words serve as a link between a person's outside world and inner being. As part of verbal
communication, language communicates the need for survival, a medium of thought and
learning, and is the most common form of expression that humans use to interact (Goodman,
1986). Various researchers have stated that language is not used specifically for communication,
but also facilitates negotiation of relationships (Pinker, 2007).
However, Pinker and others believe that language serves as part of an executive function
and not as the medium of all thought (Pinker, 2003). Evidence given for this standpoint is
revealed by those that do not have language but still have categorical function of thought that
continues to work, such as: objects, space, cause and effect, number, probability, agency and
even tool creation (Pinker, 2003). Primates and infants exemplify these internal workings of the
mind because they still communicate their needs and desires without the use of words.
Language has also been found to be processed and retained wholly as a sum of its parts. Past
research on "...human memory have confirmed that what we remember over the long term is the
content, not the [specific] wording, of stories and conversations" (Pinker, 2003, p. 210). A given
example of this is after reading a passage you can recall the overall meaning and general concept
of the information. A person is not able to repeat the sentences back verbatim and will leave out
bits of the sentences the original author had included. Even if specific words use is not encoded,
a person's choice of individual words should still be a subject of research. Perhaps word use that
people share during speech could be used as an indicator to some of the internal processes that
the individual experiences.
Word Use