Power and Positivity: Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Word Valence in Canadian Parliament

Politicians are skilled language users who deploy words strategically and pay close attention to the emotions that those words evoke. We examined the emotional characteristics of over 92 million words spoken by Canadian Members of Parliament between 2006 and 2021. The analysis brought together the W...

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Autores principales:	Jordan Gallant, Gary Libben
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:	valence emotion politics positivity parliament psycholinguistics Communication. Mass media P87-96
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/6fb87311f80f4d2a97d2d4177187de60
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:6fb87311f80f4d2a97d2d4177187de602021-11-09T06:29:08ZPower and Positivity: Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Word Valence in Canadian Parliament2297-900X10.3389/fcomm.2021.770497https://doaj.org/article/6fb87311f80f4d2a97d2d4177187de602021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.770497/fullhttps://doaj.org/toc/2297-900XPoliticians are skilled language users who deploy words strategically and pay close attention to the emotions that those words evoke. We examined the emotional characteristics of over 92 million words spoken by Canadian Members of Parliament between 2006 and 2021. The analysis brought together the Warriner, Kuperman, and Brysbaert (Behav. Res., 2013, 45, 1191–1207) database of valence (positivity) ratings for English and the Canadian Hansard, which contains a transcription of parliamentary speech. Results revealed that the positivity of words used by politicians in parliament was significantly related to both political and social variables. Politicians increased the positivity of their language after the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. Within the time of the crisis, word positivity was linked statistically to month-by-month case counts, indicating a very fine-grained sensitivity to social realities. Our analysis also revealed a fine-grained sensitivity of word valence to political realities. As expected, parties in power used more positive language than those in opposition. In addition, our analysis revealed that individual parties have characteristic levels of word positivity and that those levels change in accordance with political changes as specific as whether or not the party in power holds a majority of seats in parliament. These findings suggest that the emotional properties of words used by Members of Parliament are reliably indexed to sociopolitical dynamics. The findings also suggest that the methodology of linking individual word ratings to Hansard Documents (which are used to document Parliamentary activities in over 25 countries) can provide a key tool for the understanding of specific crises such as the COVID-19 global pandemic as well as more general social and political trends across countries and languages.Jordan GallantGary LibbenFrontiers Media S.A.articlevalenceemotionpoliticspositivityparliamentpsycholinguisticsCommunication. Mass mediaP87-96ENFrontiers in Communication, Vol 6 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	valence emotion politics positivity parliament psycholinguistics Communication. Mass media P87-96
spellingShingle	valence emotion politics positivity parliament psycholinguistics Communication. Mass media P87-96 Jordan Gallant Gary Libben Power and Positivity: Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Word Valence in Canadian Parliament
description	Politicians are skilled language users who deploy words strategically and pay close attention to the emotions that those words evoke. We examined the emotional characteristics of over 92 million words spoken by Canadian Members of Parliament between 2006 and 2021. The analysis brought together the Warriner, Kuperman, and Brysbaert (Behav. Res., 2013, 45, 1191–1207) database of valence (positivity) ratings for English and the Canadian Hansard, which contains a transcription of parliamentary speech. Results revealed that the positivity of words used by politicians in parliament was significantly related to both political and social variables. Politicians increased the positivity of their language after the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. Within the time of the crisis, word positivity was linked statistically to month-by-month case counts, indicating a very fine-grained sensitivity to social realities. Our analysis also revealed a fine-grained sensitivity of word valence to political realities. As expected, parties in power used more positive language than those in opposition. In addition, our analysis revealed that individual parties have characteristic levels of word positivity and that those levels change in accordance with political changes as specific as whether or not the party in power holds a majority of seats in parliament. These findings suggest that the emotional properties of words used by Members of Parliament are reliably indexed to sociopolitical dynamics. The findings also suggest that the methodology of linking individual word ratings to Hansard Documents (which are used to document Parliamentary activities in over 25 countries) can provide a key tool for the understanding of specific crises such as the COVID-19 global pandemic as well as more general social and political trends across countries and languages.
format	article
author	Jordan Gallant Gary Libben
author_facet	Jordan Gallant Gary Libben
author_sort	Jordan Gallant
title	Power and Positivity: Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Word Valence in Canadian Parliament
title_short	Power and Positivity: Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Word Valence in Canadian Parliament
title_full	Power and Positivity: Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Word Valence in Canadian Parliament
title_fullStr	Power and Positivity: Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Word Valence in Canadian Parliament
title_full_unstemmed	Power and Positivity: Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Word Valence in Canadian Parliament
title_sort	power and positivity: psycholinguistic perspectives on word valence in canadian parliament
publisher	Frontiers Media S.A.
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/6fb87311f80f4d2a97d2d4177187de60
work_keys_str_mv	AT jordangallant powerandpositivitypsycholinguisticperspectivesonwordvalenceincanadianparliament AT garylibben powerandpositivitypsycholinguisticperspectivesonwordvalenceincanadianparliament
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Power and Positivity: Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Word Valence in Canadian Parliament

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