All the differences in the speeches of Melania Trump and Michelle Obama. Expert System analysis
Here is the result of the semantic analysis by the Cogito software
Storm in the American electoral campaign after the alleged plagiarism of Michelle Obama's speech by Melania Trump, wife of the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump. The intervention of the former Slovenian model has at least a couple of paragraphs identical to what the current first lady did in 2008. But is it really plagiarism?
According to Time magazine "a member of Melania Trump's staff resigned, but his resignation was not accepted". Meredith McIver admitted that she copied passages from Trump's wife's speech. With the Trump Organization letterhead, McIver introduced herself as a "member of the Trump Organization editorial team" and "an old friend and admirer of the family who was given the job of working on Melania Trump's speech." “I feel terrible for all the chaos wreaked on Melania and the Trump family - he wrote - as well as Mrs Obama. It was not my intention (...) I wrote some notes and then I integrated some passages by paraphrasing them, to get the final speech. I haven't read Obama's speech. It was a mistake. And I feel terrible what caused all this ”.
In the United States, we know, many mistakes are forgiven. But an error that is given particular weight is, in fact, copying. Making the intellectual work of others one's own, without any indications being inserted, is considered a crime of value and principle. Vice President Joe Biden is well aware of this, years ago he had to give up the race for the White House after having admitted having uttered some identical sentences in the speech of a British trade unionist, as Il Sole 24 Ore recalls.
MANAFORT: A COINCIDENCE
Trump's campaign manager, the Italian-American Paul Manafort (here the portrait of Formiche.net) argues that the identical steps between the two interventions are simply "coincidence". Trump's electoral strategy was based on a single message: effectiveness. The manager who hopes to take office in the White House wants to present himself as a “winner” and make his political rivals appear as “failed”. Speeches delivered at the Cleveland Convention had no original content, except for economic policy proposals. For this reason, for some analysts, it is unlikely that Melania Trump's speech was copied. Or, at least, those two offending paragraphs.
IT IS NOT PLAGIOUS
On social networks, the sentence of plagiarism started a few minutes after Melania Trump's speech. But according to the semantic analysis of the Cogito software created by the Italian company Expert System, there are substantial differences between Melania Trump's speech and Michelle Obama's. Semantics experts asked the question: "Did Melania Trump use the same language as Michelle Obama?" The program's response was "no". Overall, the two interventions are very different, both from the point of language and from that of style.
COUNTERCURRENT ANALYSIS
Luca Scagliarini, CMO of Expert System, admits that "the results of our investigation may seem surprising if you think about the storm that broke out on Melania Trump after the appearance at the Cleveland convention (...) Yet, the speech of the aspiring first lady on the whole looks very different from the one held by Michelle Obama in Denver in 2008. But this is precisely one of the most interesting aspects of text analytics: analyzing language and unstructured information, testing hypotheses and perhaps even proving the opposite of hired".
LEXICAL WEALTH AND UNDERSTANDING
The phrases in the former model's speech referring to the future and values are very similar to those spoken by Michelle Obama in Denver, but the rest of the speech is very different in terms of vocabulary, linguistic register and emotions. The program found that the vocabulary used by Melania Trump is richer than that used by Michelle Obama (lexical wealth equal to 78.6% for Trump compared to 48.47% for Obama); Trump's syntax is simpler (in Trump's sentences there are about 16 words, in Obama's about 28), while the ease of reading / understanding of Melania Trump's speech is equal to 39.3% compared to 23.35% of that of Michelle Obama.
KEYWORDS AND STYLE
Michelle Obama's speech has hope as its central idea, while in Melania Trump's, desire prevails. Both love and success are present. The most relevant phrases recorded by the Cogito software are linked to the words "president" and the future of the nation (USA, our country).
As for the style, for Cogito that of Melania Trump is more direct and incisive than that of Michelle Obama, which is more articulated, with repetitions that convey emphasis and clarity.
THE SEMANTIC SOFTWARE
Cogito software is a semantic program that allows you to create new cognitive computing applications for the analysis of big data and various information. Designed by the Expert System company, Cogito is used by more than 500 startups. To deepen the semantic analysis of the Cogito program on the speeches of Melania Trump and Michelle Obama, you can read the full report by Expert System here.
