Hi Michael, The work of linguists who work within the theoretical and methodological framework of Critical Discourse Analysis might be of some use to you. A starting point: Fairclough, Norman (2001) Language and Power (Second Edition). ed.Candlin, Christopher N., Second Edition edn., Language in Social Life Series, Harlow: Longman. Fairclough, Norman (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. ed.Candlin, Christopher N., Language in Social Life Series, Harlow: Pearson. Wodak, Ruth and Michael Meyer (eds.) (2009) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (Second Edition). London: Sage. Best, Barb -- Barbara Clark, PhD student School of Languages, Linguistics and Film Queen Mary, University of London Mile End Road London E1 4NS United Kingdom b.l.clark@qmul.ac.uk mobile: (07912) 690075 On 22 Nov 2010, at 15:36, Michael Conover wrote:
Our research group (made up of physicists and computer scientists) needs to evaluate the political content of short pieces of text. To this end we've constructed a rubric for classification, ranging from strong left, lean left, and neutral, to lean right, strong right, and unclassifiable. While the criteria of the rubric are rather clear cut (a 'strong' classified sentence would contain attacks on a person or group's character, hyperbolic language, or intense / fanatical expressions of support for an issue), we all suspect that this is a solved problem.
I've heard this referred to by political scientists as 'coding' text, and it definitely falls within the domain of qualitative content analysis, but I'm yet to find anything specifically on evaluating political text. This in mind, can anyone point me towards an established metric for evaluating the political content of bodies of text?
Thanks kindly, Michael Conover _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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