Other Than Counting Words: A Linguistic Approach to Content Analysis

A linguistic technique for the content analysis of texts and transcripts is described and illustrated. The technique produces a quantitative description of texts that represents both the interrelations among words and their classification into meaning categories. The face validity of the description is demonstrated with a computer-aided translation of coded data back into text. The advantages of linguistic content analysis over qualitative and computer-aided approaches to content analysis are discussed. Also discussed are problems of linguistic ambiguity and of the computer automation of the technique. While Director of the Experimental Division for the Study of War-Time Communications, Harold Lasswell explained that in the content analysis