Political Debares as a Goldmine for Researchers.pptx

Political Debates as a Goldmine of Research Material

1. Political Debate as the Linguist’s Goldmine: What Can We Learn from the Same Text Using Different Methods of Linguistic Analysis? Why do We Want to Learn It? Alexey Tymbay , PhD Technical University in Liberec, Czech Republic

2. US Presidential Debates 1960 - Kennedy–Nixon debates 1976 - Carter-Ford debates 1980 - Carter-Reagan debate 1983 - “ Debategate ” 1984 - Vice presidential debates Debate Rules 2016 - Clinton-Trump debates 2020 - Trump-Biden debates Harris-Pence vice presidential debates Debate Rules’ change 2024 - Trump-Biden debate Trump-Harris debate

3. “bi-directional transfer” Refaie (2003)

4. 1. Working with the text

5. corpus-assisted discourse analysis (CADS) (Baker & McEnery, 2005) Keywords (KWs) (Scott ,1997) are the units with a strikingly higher relative frequency in the target text compared to that in a reference corpus . Thematic concentration (Čech & Kubat , 2016) highlights linguistic items in the target data based on their frequency characteristics and h-points , inspired by Hirsch index (Chen & Liu, 2017). Market Basket Analysis (MBA) (Cvrček & Fidler, 2022) identifies the co-occurrence of keywords in texts (not necessarily in proximity to each other) Search engine optimization tools (SEO) for the semantic core analysis Human-conducted perceptual analysis (PA).

6. 2024 Trump-Harris DEBATE KWords ( https://kwords.korpus.cz/ ) (Horký, Vondřička , Cvrček 2023)

7. QuitaUP ( https://korpus.cz/quitaup/ ) (Cvrček, Čech, Kubát 2020)

8. perceptual (Manual) analysis ( Dufek , 2024)

9. Perceptual Analysis (NBC Polls, October 2024)

10. https:// miratext.ru / https:// seo-exya.com / SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO) TOOLS https:// moz.com /

11. Results Interpretation and method’ limitations Measuring prominent units ( keyness ) Establishing representativeness of discourse Identifying (distant) associations and discursive frames Register-related (administrative & procedural) vs. topic-related KW A relevant reference corpus ( deliberating & debating, and government policies) Implicit meanings, metaphors, humor, sarcasm A combination of tools + validation techniques

12. II. Working with the sound

13. 2020 TRUMP-BIDEN Debates

14. Conversation analysis (CA) ( Sacks et al., 1974) “Conventional turn–taking in the debate represents a challenge for speakers, who, on the one hand, are expected to comply with institutional norms (the debate rules) and, on the other, try to impose their stances and achieve goals at the cost of violating those rules”(Ilie, 2015: 8)

15. Communicative Strategy Example from the Research Corpus Interruption Strategy DT: (03:44) Because you know what? There’s nothing smart about you, Joe. Forty-seven years you’ve done nothing. J B: (03:49) Well, let’s have this debate… DT: (03:51) Let me just tell you something, Joe Critical Backchannels J B: (14:17) All he knows is how to do … DT: (14:18) On Super Tuesday, you got very lucky. JB: (14:21) I got very lucky. I’m going to get very lucky tonight as well. Direct Address Strategy DT: (18:05) Are you going to pack the court? JB: (18:07) (looking at the camera) Vote now. DT; (18:08) Are you going to pack the court? JB: (18:09) (looking at the camera) Make sure you, in fact, know your senators. Repetition Strategy DT: That was said sarcastically, and you know that... That was said sarcastically[...] We’ve had no negative effect… We’ve had no negative effect, and we’ve had 35 -  40,000 people at these rallies.

16. communicative strategies - plans for communicating information related to a specific issue, event, situation, or audience, realized in the form of a set of tactics (recurring patterns of speech behavior) ( Halvorson et al., 2004 )

17. Pragmatic analysis of communication “Pragmatics is the study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in  social interaction  and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication” (Crystal, 1997: 301). The social situation The relationship between the speakers The cultural context The situational context The way the words are said

18. TV viewers’ voting preferences Gallop / fivethirtyeight polls “How likely are you to vote for the candidate?” First Debate (2020) Second Debate (2020) D. Trump J. Biden D. Trump J. Biden before the debate 3.8 5.0 3.8 5.2 after the debate 3.7 5.2 3.8 5.1

19. III. Working with the Picture

20. Facial Expression scientific analysis techniques Interpretative System of Facial Expressions (ISFE) (Legisa et al., 2013) The Body Action and Posture coding system (Dael, Mortillaro , & Scherer 2012) The NEUROpsychological GESture (NEUROGES) System (NGS) is an objective and reliable analysis system for nonverbal behaviour , focusing on hand movement and gestural behavior (Lausberg, 2013).

21. Results’ interpretation MediaPipe Gesture Recognizer task lets you recognize hand gestures in real time (Google AI) “P rotruding funneled lips: primal display often occurring during  intense emotional situations  and is associated with  anger and threats  while engaging in dominance-seeking behavior (Stewart, 2020)”

22. 2020 Harris – Pence vice presidential Debate 2024 Trump-Harris presidential Debate

23. Perceptual Analysis NBC Polls (October, 2024) https:// www.nbcnews.com /politics/2024-election/

24. WHY?

25. Can we trust what we see?

26. Speaker’s Identity components:

27. Trump’s distinctive speaking style (2016 – 2020 - 2024) Simplicity and Repetition: “clip mentality” Interruptions: Trump interrupted roughly 30% more often (2016, 2020 debates) - CHANGE Name-Calling and Personal Attacks: “ S he has been so bad and so ridiculous” Us-Them Opposition: “fake news,” ”fake c ases,” “It is much higher because of them” Gish gallop - NEW

28. Harris’s speech behavior (2020 – 2024) Personal Appeal: ”I come from a middle-class family” Contact with the audience: “The choice is clear in this election” + gestures “Talking” Facial expressions and Gestures = backchannels (“Oh, please!”) Controlled calm messaging: “ Mr Vice-President, I’m speaking” Us/Them opposition: “I offer a new generation of leadership”, “the same old playbook”

29. perceptual analysis 2024 Trump-Harris debate

30. Conclusions