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标题：Computational analysis of 140 years of US political speeches reveals more positive but increasingly polarized framing of immigration
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作者：Dallas Card ; Serina Chang ; Chris Becker 等
期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2022
卷号：119
期号：31
DOI：10.1073/pnas.2120510119
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Significance In the first comprehensive quantitative analysis of the past 140 y of US congressional and presidential speech about immigration, we identify a dramatic rise in proimmigration attitudes beginning in the 1940s, followed by a steady decline among Republicans (relative to Democrats) over the past 50 y. We also reveal divergent usage of positive (e.g., families) and negative (e.g., crime) frames—over time, by party, and between frequently mentioned European and non-European groups. Finally, to capture more suggestive language, we introduce a method for measuring implicit dehumanizing metaphors long associated with immigration (animals, cargo, etc.) and show that such metaphorical language has been significantly more common in speeches by Republicans than Democrats in recent decades. We classify and analyze 200,000 US congressional speeches and 5,000 presidential communications related to immigration from 1880 to the present. Despite the salience of antiimmigration rhetoric today, we find that political speech about immigration is now much more positive on average than in the past, with the shift largely taking place between World War II and the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965. However, since the late 1970s, political parties have become increasingly polarized in their expressed attitudes toward immigration, such that Republican speeches today are as negative as the average congressional speech was in the 1920s, an era of strict immigration quotas. Using an approach based on contextual embeddings of text, we find that modern Republicans are significantly more likely to use language that is suggestive of metaphors long associated with immigration, such as “animals” and “cargo,” and make greater use of frames like “crime” and “legality.” The tone of speeches also differs strongly based on which nationalities are mentioned, with a striking similarity between how Mexican immigrants are framed today and how Chinese immigrants were framed during the era of Chinese exclusion in the late 19th century. Overall, despite more favorable attitudes toward immigrants and the formal elimination of race-based restrictions, nationality is still a major factor in how immigrants are spoken of in Congress.
关键词：enimmigrationmetaphordehumanizationframingCongress