Tracing Antisemitic Language Through Diachronic Embedding Projections: France 1789-1914
Rocco Tripodi, Massimo Warglien, Simon Levis Sullam, Déborah Paci · 2019
We investigate some aspects of the history of antisemitism in France, one of the cradles of modern antisemitism, using diachronic word embeddings.We constructed a large corpus of French books and periodicals issues that contain a keyword related to Jews and performed a diachronic word embedding over the 1789-1914 period.We studied the changes over time in the semantic spaces of 4 target words and performed embedding projections over 6 streams of antisemitic discourse.This allowed us to track the evolution of antisemitic bias in the religious, economic, socio-politic, racial, ethic and conspiratorial domains.Projections show a trend of growing antisemitism, especially in the years starting in the mid-80s and culminating in the Dreyfus affair.Our analysis also allows us to highlight the peculiar adverse bias towards Judaism in the broader context of other religions.