News Finding: They found that assembly members on the political left used novel ways of speaking, some of which caught on and gained influence, while more conservative members used familiar word combinations to delay change.
Paper Finding: Our analysis reveals clear differences between how the left-and right-wing figures created and transmitted patterns of language use.
News Context: By analyzing word patterns from the French Revolution Digital Archive to determine how novel they were and whether they persisted or disappeared, the researchers provided evidence for the argument that debates in the assembly produced the revolution's ideals and principles. They found that assembly members on the political left used novel ways of speaking, some of which caught on and gained influence, while more conservative members used familiar word combinations to delay change. Members who were charismatic and made their case in new ways were more effective in getting their proposals accepted.
Paper Context: This provides a new window into qualitative analyses, which usually focus on analyzing the logic of particular ideas and arguments over time . Our analysis reveals clear differences between how the left-and right-wing figures created and transmitted patterns of language use. Conservatives may indeed "stand athwart history, yelling Stop" ; our results show that here they did so less by redirecting conversation from one set of patterns to another than by maintaining the alreadyestablished patterns of the conversations in which they participated.