National cooperation

This topic is somewhat of an event and an author topic combined, in that the author (the Progressive Conservatives) caused the event (renewed constitutional negotiations).

In the 1980s, the Progressive Conservatives called for renewed constitutional negotiations following the patriation of the constitution in 1982. These negotiations, the “Quebec round”, emphasized the importance of achieving national unity (represented, in part, by Quebec’s signature on the constitution) through concessions to Quebec and the provinces.

The significance of national in this topic prompted me to look at how that word has been used throughout the corpus. While a Voyant phrase analysis of nation* reveals many interesting findings, one transition in particular stuck out to me: early in the corpus, “national development” appears; toward the middle of the corpus (the period covered by this topic), “national unity” and “national identity” are more prominent; toward the end of the corpus (nearer to the present day), “national security” appears more significant. This shift in the nouns associated with the adjective “national” suggests the value in looking at a corpus not just for the words it contains, but for the parts of speech they represent.