A study of inclusiveness of personal pronouns in TED Talks: a comparison of science and art

The present study employed a corpus-based approach and quantitative/qualitative content analysis to analyze the use of personal pronouns and inclusiveness and exclusiveness in TED Talks in the topics of science and art. Ten videos from science-related TED Talks and ten from art-related TED Talks, each approximately 10-18 minutes in length, and published during the years 2010-2024 were selected to create two corpora: the Science TED Talks corpus and the Art TED Talks corpus. Pronoun usage was first identified and quantified using AntConc, followed by qualitative and quantitative analysis of the contextual usage of inclusive and exclusive ‘we’, with classification criteria adapted from Sheibman (2004). The results revealed that the use of first-person pronouns differs slightly between the two corpora. Science TED speakers tend to use ‘we’ more frequently, while art TED speakers employ ‘I’ more often. This pattern may suggest the collaborative nature of science work, and the personal narrative-driven nature of artistic expression. With regard to the use of inclusive and exclusive ‘we’, science TED Talks were more inclusive due to a higher frequency of inclusive ‘we’ compared to art TED Talks. However, both corpora showed greater use of exclusive ‘we’. The analysis suggested that science TED speakers used inclusive ‘we’ to engage the audience rationally with complex scientific content, while art TED speakers used it to provoke emotional reflection on social issues, often through storytelling. Pronominal choices in both topics reflect their respective communicative purposes and can offer a potential model for enhancing effective communication among English learners.