75 years of political discourse in Romania. A corpus-driven analysis of multiword expressions

Abstract

Emotions in political language use can have considerable repercussions on a society, especially on the expression of solidarity and ostracism, which are closely connected to the emotions of trust and aversion. Driven² by a sub-corpus of spoken presidential texts from 1992 to 2004, this analysis constructs on the basis of multiword expressions emotion profiles of the political actors. To do so, it draws from Robert Plutchik’s wheel of emotions³ and the Romanian Emotion Lexicon (RoEmoLex)⁴ and focuses on hints for trust and aversion. The findings indicate a high degree of expressions of trust while aversion is nearly non-existent. Moreover, an increase of emotions during the three presidential terms of Ion Iliescu and Emil Constantinescu is remarkable from a diachronic perspective and constitutes a transition from the topics of internal stability and security to global cooperation and responsibility.