October 2, 2024
3 min learn
Debate Linguistics Reveals the Politics at Play within the 2024 Election
Linguist and sociophonetician Nicole Holliday analyzes the language utilized by candidates within the latest presidential and vice presidential debates
In election debates, language issues. So Scientific American reached out to a linguist for knowledgeable evaluation of the latest presidential and vice presidential debates.
Nicole Holliday is an appearing affiliate professor of linguistics on the College of California, Berkeley, and a sociophonetician—somebody who research the connection between language and social id. A part of her analysis facilities on political speech, and she or he’s writing a guide about what it means to sound presidential. We beforehand spoke with Holliday on our podcast Science Shortly. In that episode, she talked about her work on the talking fashion of present vice chairman and presidential candidate Kamala Harris, whom she has studied since 2019. Within the movies beneath, Holliday identifies the fascinating linguistic patterns of all of the candidates.
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Breaking down Kamala Harris’s speech patterns within the latest presidential debate
All through this election cycle, Holliday has observed Harris sounding extra formal, polished and “traditionally presidential.” In September’s presidential debate, Harris even borrowed a phrase from former president Barack Obama when she tailored his well-known chorus “let me be clear” to her personal “let’s be clear.” However Holliday factors out that though Harris has taken on a extra mainstream method of talking, significantly on points such because the economic system and immigration, she nonetheless reveals options of African American English when she talks about extra private topics equivalent to race and girls’s rights. On this video Holliday explains how Harris nonetheless appeared like herself within the debate, simply doing so “in the model of a presidential speaker.”
Trump’s New York accent may come out when he feels threatened
Presidential candidates usually drop a few of their regional accents and undertake extra mainstream options in an effort to sound extra formal or presidential, Holliday explains. Each Harris and former president Donald Trump do that to various levels. However generally that “sociolinguistic monitor” slips, and a candidate’s accent comes via extra strongly. This occurred within the presidential debate, when Trump repeatedly pronounced terror as “terr-ah” and horrible as “harrible.” On this video, Holliday explains a concept for why this occurred based mostly on a tactic utilized in linguistic analysis.
How the vice presidential candidates tried to “out-Midwestern” one another of their latest debate
Within the vice presidential debate Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota each leaned closely into their Midwestern id, Holliday says. They employed a basic Midwestern congeniality, usually referred to as “Minnesota nice,” and repeatedly referred to their humble middle-American upbringing. In distinction to their working mates—a billionaire from New York Metropolis and a lady of shade from California, respectively—Walz and Vance are each seen as extra “default,” Holliday says, and the vice presidential candidates aimed to strengthen that “regular guy” standing via their language within the debate.
How phrase selections replicate our political leanings
Individuals can stay in very totally different linguistic worlds, relying on their political leanings and media surroundings, Holliday explains on this video. She introduces us to a linguistic phenomenon referred to as a “shibboleth,” which is a phrase, phrase or pronunciation that distinguishes one group from one other. Specific phrases used [AS12] by Vance within the vice presidential debate, equivalent to “illegal aliens” and “criminal migrants,” are shibboleths that sign his political alignment.
