From sentiment to style: Charles Stewart Parnell’s rhetoric in the first crisis of the UK

Abstract

Charles Stewart Parnell was the dominant Irish political figure of the late-nineteenth century. His campaigns for land reform and Home Rule changed Ireland’s relationship with Britain and reshaped north-south relations on the island. Despite his remarkable stature and influence, his legacy continues to be contested among scholars and his political stance is widely described as an ‘enigma’. His speeches were the main instrument through which he mobilized and polarized opinion throughout the Anglo-world, yet they have never been edited or even collected, and their impact—always presumed to be considerable—has not been studied in any systematic way. In this article, we describe the application of a combination of sentiment analysis (SA) and topic modelling to Parnell’s speeches to investigate how, when, and why he used emotive language, and which topics were utilized in the emotional manipulation of his audience. We will discuss the issues which arose in our experiments and how adopting a more nuanced approach to language could provide solutions to these challenges. We will also talk about how our investigation lead us away from ‘pure’ SA (i.e. positive or negative attitudes towards a particular aspect) and towards ‘style’ as a better framework for understanding and comparing the texts of the speeches. Finally, we will outline our plans for further work in this area.