The traditional End-of-Year Address is an important media event and a peculiar civil ritual (unique in its kind) because the President addresses directly the Italian citizens. Besides the obvious contents of good wishes and solemnity, the texts of the presidential addresses are a rich source of information on the last fifty years of the Italian history. The comparison and contrast of the addresses is revealing of the changing habits and morals of the country and of the differing personalities of the Presidents. For this reason, an interdisciplinary research team of the University of Padova, composed of linguists, historians, politologists, sociologists, and statisticians, has started a research project aimed at analyzing the corpus of all the Italian presidential addresses from different disciplinary perspectives (Cortelazzo and Tuzzi, 2007). Statistical and linguistic procedures were implemented to analyse the corpus composed of fiftyseven addresses delivered by nine Presidents of the Italian Republic in the period 1948-2006. These addresses were compared and contrasted in order to identify the characteristic lexical features of the Presidents’ language and to highlight differences and similarities in discourse practices. The results evidenciate that individual characteristic features and personal traits are more important than other factors: End-of-Year Addresses topics often appear unpredictable because what the President decides to say (or not to say) and how remains to a large extent a personal choice. The proposed methodology is an attempt to link traditional qualitative methods and modern statistical analysis of textual data.
Messaggi dal Colle. L'analisi statistica dei dati testuali e il discorso di fine anno del Presidente della Repubblica Italiana.
TUZZI, ARJUNA
2008
Abstract
The traditional End-of-Year Address is an important media event and a peculiar civil ritual (unique in its kind) because the President addresses directly the Italian citizens. Besides the obvious contents of good wishes and solemnity, the texts of the presidential addresses are a rich source of information on the last fifty years of the Italian history. The comparison and contrast of the addresses is revealing of the changing habits and morals of the country and of the differing personalities of the Presidents. For this reason, an interdisciplinary research team of the University of Padova, composed of linguists, historians, politologists, sociologists, and statisticians, has started a research project aimed at analyzing the corpus of all the Italian presidential addresses from different disciplinary perspectives (Cortelazzo and Tuzzi, 2007). Statistical and linguistic procedures were implemented to analyse the corpus composed of fiftyseven addresses delivered by nine Presidents of the Italian Republic in the period 1948-2006. These addresses were compared and contrasted in order to identify the characteristic lexical features of the Presidents’ language and to highlight differences and similarities in discourse practices. The results evidenciate that individual characteristic features and personal traits are more important than other factors: End-of-Year Addresses topics often appear unpredictable because what the President decides to say (or not to say) and how remains to a large extent a personal choice. The proposed methodology is an attempt to link traditional qualitative methods and modern statistical analysis of textual data.Pubblicazioni consigliate
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