Expression of emotion in books declined during 20th century, study finds

[deborahjross]

Using a database of over 5 million digitized books, researchers at the Universities of Bristol, Sheffield, and Durham found a divergence between literary American and British English, with the former being more 'emotional' than the latter. More interestingly, they noticed a decrease in the use of emotional words in the past decades except for those relating to fear. They note that during the period around World War II, there was an increase in words related to sadness, and a correspondent decrease in words related to joy.

Now, of course, they're debating what all this means...



Expression of emotion in books declined during 20th century, study finds