Hopes and Fears -- Emotion Distribution in the Topic Landscape of Finnish Parliamentary Speech 2000-2020

TL;DR

This study analyzes emotion patterns in Finnish parliamentary speeches from 2000 to 2020, revealing increasing positivity and topic-specific emotional differences over time.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of emotion distribution across topics in parliamentary discourse, filling a gap in understanding topic-specific emotional patterns.

Findings

Evidence of increasing positivity in speeches

Identification of topic-specific emotion patterns

Insights into emotional changes over two decades

Abstract

Existing research often treats parliamentary discourse as a homogeneous whole, overlooking topic-specific patterns. Parliamentary speeches address a wide range of topics, some of which evoke stronger emotions than others. While everyone has intuitive assumptions about what the most emotive topics in a parliament may be, there has been little research into the emotions typically linked to different topics. This paper strives to fill this gap by examining emotion expression among the topics of parliamentary speeches delivered in Eduskunta, the Finnish Parliament, between 2000 and 2020. An emotion analysis model is used to investigate emotion expression in topics, from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. The results strengthen evidence of increasing positivity in parliamentary speech and provide further insights into topic-specific emotion expression within parliamentary debate.