ABSTRACT

The purpose of this chapter is to model the ideological consistency of discourse as the stability of evaluations in a dynamic semantic network (DSN). Evaluative meaning effects are modelled as the dynamic modification between units of discourse. Starting from default evaluations, units of discourse interact along semantic channels. After a certain amount of time, the dynamic system eventually reaches an equilibrium. It is then possible to estimate the ideological consistency of the discourse as the difference between the vector of default evaluations and the vector of evaluations on which the dynamic stabilizes. Intuitively, the smaller this difference is, the more consistent discourse is. By trying out several ideological hypotheses, it is possible to determine under which one the discourse is most consistent.