accountability hack redux

Parli-N-Grams

Giuseppe Sollazzo@puntofisso

Accountability Hack 2014 ReduxPortcullis House, 15 January 2015

The language used in politicspoints to the

political, cultural, social backgroundof MPs, parties, and their time

A great search lets you

discover knowledgeby just searching

Parli-N-Grams

A search and analysis tool for Hansard

An N-Gram is a sequence of N words extracted from a longer sentence

N-Grams?

You can split any word sequence in n-grams lists

e.g. “The quick brown fox”

N-Grams?

“The quick brown fox” | 1-grams

● the● quick● brown● fox

N-Grams?


● the quick● quick brown● brown fox

N-Grams?


● the quick brown● quick brown fox

N-Grams?


● the quick brown fox

N-Grams?

30” demo

What can we find out?

Related Ideas

1. Create a Markov Chain by analysing text2. Generate text by using the Markov Chain

Markov Text Generation

photo CC BY-NC by UK Parliament: https://www.flickr.com/photos/uk_parliament/8719647747

What happens if we apply Markov analysis and generation to the

Queen’s Speeches?

My Government will be devolved.

My Government will be devolved.

FALSE

My Government will work with the Afghan government.

My Government will work with the Afghan government.

TRUE

My Government looks forward to an enhanced partnership with India.

My Government looks forward to an enhanced partnership with India.

FALSE

And more...

My Government will be reduced.

My Government will be strengthened in July.

My Government will be strengthened in Afghanistan.

People will be reviewed.

My Government will introduce fixed term Parliaments of unnecessary laws.

My Government will introduce fixed term Parliaments of children.

Legislation will be introduced for a viable Palestinian state existing in Northern Ireland.

My Government will support the abolition of Wales.

My Government looks forward to the blessing of Identity Cards and political parties.

The Almighty God may rest upon the management of the Commons.

Perception: real but implausibleCan we analyse empathy in language?Can we analyse emotional reactions to speeches?Do speeches by MPs elicit the same reaction?

A language uncanny valley?

Hubris Syndrome?

P Garrard, D Owen, et al., “Linguistic Biomarkers of Hubris Syndrome, Cortex, Elsevier, 2013

COPYRIGHT BY THE ARTICLE’S AUTHORS

SEE FOOTNOTE FOR DETAILS

Stylistic similarity in literature

J Hughes et al., “Quantitative patterns of stylistic influence in the evolution of literature”, PNAS, 2012



Vocabulary Size

M Daniels, “The largest vocabulary in Hip-Hop”, http://rappers.mdaniels.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/



Reading level

Fox et al., “Who was America’s most well-spoken President?” http://www.vocativ.com/interactive/usa/us-politics/presidential-readability/



What lies ahead

Vocabulary Size

Ongoing Work

Run away from PHP Python + NLTKMake it stable; auto-harvestSearch on N-Grams, N>1Search by MP and political party

-> build each MP’s political historyBuild a base of analysesUI for the public + researchers

Questions?Parli-N-Gram

http://parli-n-grams.puntofisso.net

http://github.com/puntofisso/AccHack14

http://www.slideshare.net/puntofisso

Giuseppe Sollazzo@puntofisso

Accountability Hack 2014 ReduxPortcullis House, 15 January 2015

accountability hack redux

Government & Nonprofit