'Oilsands' or 'tarsands' -- the language you use expresses your position.

Two University of Alberta professors -- Chris Westbury in the Faculty of Science's Department of Psychology and Lianne Lefsrud in the Faculty of Engineering -- are taking an interdisciplinary approach to exploring public discourse.

Their current research focuses on the dialogue surrounding Alberta's resource industries.

Westbury and Lefsrud teamed up this summer with psychology professor Geoff Hollis and two students to analyze nearly half a million unique newspaper articles dating back to 2004.

"We are analyzing how often words appear in the same article, and how this changes across time," says Westbury, adding that the group is focusing on 200 keywords derived in consultation with industry experts.

"For example, how often when you see the word 'oil' do you also see the word 'dirty'?"

"Our results show that 'tarsands' is much more emotionally negative than the more neutral 'oilsands,'" says Lefsrud.

"Our research demonstrates that these terms started out fairly close on what we call the 'negativity index,' our measure of negative emotional sentiment. Then they split. The interesting thing is that it looks like there's a spillover effect within about an eight-month window. As 'tarsands' acquires negative meaning, the negativity spills over, and 'oilsands' becomes more negative."

Westbury and Lefsrud see the possibility of their research being applied beyond resource development to other controversial issues -- energy, climate change, and stem cell research, for example.

"We can track controversial issues to see how and where they've changed through time," says Lefsrud. Westbury and Lefsrud are presenting their initial results to the Alberta Chamber of Resources on Oct. 1.

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