A Couple Study for Forensic Students

A student sent me a link to an interesting story shared on Fox News a couple months ago about how couples, when they are happy together, use similar language. The researchers involved in the study claim that even famous poets have a writing style that is similar to their significant other's when they are in a happy period of the relationship. People are taking this one step further to say that it might be possible to make predictions about the success rate of a couple's relationship based on a comparison of their writing styles and language usage. Here is a link to the original story.

What do you think? Is it possible to tell if a couple is happy together based on linguistic analysis? Is your language usage similar to that of your significant other?

I'm off to find a writing sample of my husband's to compare to mine...

Syllabus of Linguistics of Invented Languages

You can find the syllabus for ENG 442-090: Topics in Linguistics (Linguistics of Invented Languages) at this link. We are still a few students shy of making the minimum required for the course to run as scheduled. If you know of anyone interested, please pass along this information so that they can see what will be covered in the course to decide if they would like to join in on the creative linguistic fun next semester. There are no prerequisites for the course (even though two are listed with the registrar's office)--you'll simply need to e-mail me (samsj@sfasu.edu) with your name and student ID# if you are interested in registering so that any holds can be lifted, which will enable you to register for the course.