Chapter 7. Quantifying the emotional tone of James Bond films

The Dictionary of Affect in Language, a tool for quantitative analysis of emotional, cognitive, and structural features of written texts or transcripts of spoken interaction, is here described and applied to the twenty-two James Bond films and the three Austin Powers parodies. This chapter takes a corpus approach and explores similarities and differences in emotional measures and other characteristics by comparing films on factors of genre and lead actor. Statistical analysis reveals striking differences between the Bond films and the Austin Powers parodies, variations in emotional measures amongst the Bond groups and a general shift in language over time.