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 an expert evaluation of the latest presidential and vice presidential debates.
Nicole Holliday is an performing affiliate professor of linguistics on the College of California, Berkeley, and a sociophonetician—somebody who research the connection between language and social identification. 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 type of present vice chairman and presidential candidate Kamala Harris, whom she has studied since 2019. Within the movies under, 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 seen Harris sounding extra formal, polished and “historically 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 means 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 resembling race and ladies’s rights. On this video Holliday explains how Harris nonetheless gave the impression of herself within the debate, simply doing so “within the mannequin of a presidential speaker.”
Trump’s New York accent would possibly come out when he feels threatened
Presidential candidates usually drop a few of their regional accents and undertake extra mainstream options so as to sound extra formal or presidential, Holliday explains. Each Harris and former president Donald Trump do that to various levels. However typically that “sociolinguistic monitor” slips, and a candidate’s accent comes by way of 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 principle 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 identification, Holliday says. They employed a basic Midwestern congeniality, usually known as “Minnesota good,” 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 coloration from California, respectively—Walz and Vance are each seen as extra “default,” Holliday says, and the vice presidential candidates aimed to strengthen that “common man” standing by way of 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 known 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, resembling “unlawful aliens” and “legal migrants,” are shibboleths that sign his political alignment.
