“Make it happen!” Verbs as markers of agency increase message effectiveness
- Verbs may be attributed to higher agency than other grammatical categories. In Study 1, we confirmed this hypothesis with archival datasets comprising verbs (N = 950) and adjectives (N = 2115). We then investigated whether verbs (vs. adjectives) increase message effectiveness. In three experiments presenting potential NGOs (Studies 2 and 3) or corporate campaigns (Study 4) in verb or adjective form, we demonstrate the hypothesized relationship. Across studies, (overall N = 721) grammatical agency consistently increased message effectiveness. Semantic agency varied across contexts by either increasing (Study 2), not affecting (Study 3), or decreasing (Study 4) the effectiveness of the message. Overall, experiments provide insights in to the meta-semantic effects of verbs – demonstrating how grammar may influence communication outcomes.
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| Author: | Magdalena FormanowiczORCiD, Agnieszka Pietraszkiewicz, Janin RoesselORCiDGND, Caterina SuitnerORCiD, Marta Witkowska, Anne MaassORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:bsz:mh39-116137 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000435 |
| ISSN: | 2151-2590 |
| Parent Title (English): | Social psychology |
| Publisher: | Hogrefe |
| Place of publication: | Göttingen |
| Document Type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Year of first Publication: | 2021 |
| Date of Publication (online): | 2023/04/18 |
| Publishing Institution: | Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache (IDS) |
| Publicationstate: | Veröffentlichungsversion |
| Reviewstate: | Peer-Review |
| Tag: | Big Two; agency; language; message effectiveness; social grammar; verbs |
| GND Keyword: | Adjektiv; Agens; Grammatik; Kommunikation; Verb |
| Volume: | 52 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| First Page: | 75 |
| Last Page: | 89 |
| Note: | The electronic supplementary material is available with the online version of the article here. |
| Note: | A correction is available here. |
| DDC classes: | 400 Sprache / 400 Sprache, Linguistik |
| Open Access?: | ja |
| Linguistics-Classification: | Grammatikforschung |
| Linguistics-Classification: | Psycholinguistik / Kognitive Linguistik |
| Licence (English): |  Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported |