Measuring the Language of “Deflategate”

Using the new science of communication analytics to analyze the Brady and Belichick interviews

Headline.

Based on objective language analytics of the “Deflategate” interviews, both Tom Brady and Bill Belichick communicated with a consistent level of trustworthy language versus their previous media statements.

Background.

In order to analyze the language of Mr. Brady and Mr. Belichick, we used our language analytics platform based on natural language processing, data science, and linguistic mapping technologies.

The source of our analysis was the language of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, comparing their historical interviews (“Previous Interviews”) to the January 22^nd press conference regarding “Deflategate.”

The measurements we used in this analysis are the linguistic measures associated with trustworthy language. Academic research has demonstrated that communicators speaking the truth demonstrate the following four linguistic cues:

1. They take ownership of their message. They write or talk about themselves, often using the first person.
2. They use above average positive sentiment, speaking positively about historical events.
3. They are comfortable with complex language. Judgments and evaluations are complex things for our brains to compute; it’s hard for our brains to create a false story.
4. They speak directly. Trustworthy communicators do not exhibit convoluted sentence structures, unnecessary words, or irrelevant details in order to pad a lie.

Analytics Results.

When communicating about “Deflategate” in the January 22^nd press conference, both Tom Brady and Bill Belichick communicated with a consistent level of trustworthy language as compared to their previous media statements.