字詞分析工具(LIWC)的理論基礎及其在體育領域的應用

Linguistic inquiry and word count in sport and exercise

語言探索與字詞計算 (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count，簡稱LIWC) 研究取向標榜以自然言語的使用頻率來標記個體的價值想法與心理歷程，已經廣泛地應用到不同領域之中，唯在體育相關領域的應用仍在萌芽階段。因此，本篇文章最重要的目的即在介紹LIWC 研究取向。LIWC 是由Pennebaker 團隊所發展的電腦化文本分析工具，分為詞典和程式兩個部份。詞典明確定義了詞彙類別與所屬詞彙，程式則計算文本中各個詞彙類別的使用百分比。LIWC 的運作邏輯是計算詞典中特定詞彙類別的語言使用頻率占總詞數之百分比，將其視為語言標記，反映特定心理意涵。後續，作者統整目前已知在體育領域中，以LIWC 進行分析之相關研究成果，內容涵蓋文化差異、運動傷害與傷後成長、運動自我效能與調節焦點，以及運動相關之社群經營和品牌行銷等議題。最後，作者依據LIWC 的特性與優勢，延伸未來在體育領域可能的應用方向，分別從運動動機、團隊氣氛與凝聚力及體壇中的性別平權議題，論述LIWC 可從中著力之處。期望透過本文讓相關領域的研究者，形成對LIWC 初步的認識，從而思考結合LIWC 於體育應用研究的可能性，點亮更多的未知。

The linguistic approach has received more and more attention in research recently. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) is one of the most popular computer-based text analysis tools which has been widely used in many research fields. The main assumption of LIWC is that the frequency of words usage in specific word categories serves as language markers which could effectively reflect individuals’ attitude, thoughts, attention, and inner process. However, LIWC has been utilized less in sports and excises compared to other research fields. To fully unleash the potential of LIWC in sports, this article reviews LIWC-related researches in sports and provides suggestions to the successors. In this article, I first introduced what is LIWC and how it works to capture individuals’ psychological characters. Next, I reviewed how LIWC has been used in sports and exercises researches, including cultural difference in athletes, coping with sport injury, self-efficacy, and the social media content in sports. In the last part, I provide suggestions for future studies, focusing especially on linguistic indices proven useful in empirical studies yet haven’t get enough attention in sports. First, since motivation is such an important concept in sport, which predicts athletes’ well-being and performance, future studies are encouraged to develop linguistic indices to better represent athlete’s sport motivation. Second, previous research has found that group atmosphere and cohesion can be captured by linguistic indices. These works can be extended in future studies to examine the effectiveness in team building intervention and whether higher group cohesion predicts better performance outcomes. Last but not least, gender inequality has become an important issue in sports recently. Since male have dominated the sports field for a very long time, little attention has been paid on the right and the opportunity for sportswomen. LIWC is a powerful tool to reflect how we treated male and female athletes so differently. In all, this article reviews what has been done by LIWC in sports research and discusses future direction for applying LIWC in sports.