In their campaigns, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris convey different emotions and moods. The contrast between them was particularly sharp during their debate on September 10, 2024.
One candidate referred to the past, used more negative language and stoked fear. The other spoke more in regards to the future, used more positive language and appealed to voters' hope.
As a linguist, author and professor I'm primarily a teacher of sociolinguistics, the best way language works in society. I've all the time been fascinated by how people use language in patterns. The recent debate between Harris and Trump gave me the chance to look at how these candidates used language to win over voters.
By taking a look at the approach a candidate takes, you may learn deeper truths about him. Traditionally, in line with rhetoric and language research, politicians can appeal to Reason, emotion or authority – or a mixture of them – to influence their audience. In terms of emotions, each fear And Hope might be effective in motivating voters. There is not any right or improper method to do that.
Linguists developed the concept of idiolecta person dialect that is sort of a fingerprint: different for everybody and arising from our unique linguistic and social experiences.
People often prepare and rehearse public speaking. But once they actually get in front of an audience, they often fall back on what’s intuitive and second nature to them – their idiolect. For example, a speaker doesn't take into consideration how long his sentences are. He thinks in regards to the ideas he wants to specific. He may not realize that his speech and delivery follow patterns or that he’s using the identical words over and all over again.
negativity
I asked a man-made intelligence tool to reply questions on word frequency, sentence length, and parts of speech in the talk. I manually reviewed the entire AI tool's output to be sure there have been no discrepancies.
Here's what I expected: I assumed that the candidates' language in the talk would reflect their different approaches to the campaign, particularly when it comes to their give attention to the past or the current, their appeals to fear or hope, and their negative or positive statements.
I actually have found this to be the case.
First, I chosen six segments from the Debate transcripteach of the identical length and in each each candidates answer the identical or at the very least an identical query.
Then I checked out the negativity of their language. I expected that more negative statements can be more consistent with appeals to the politics of fear, while more positive statements can be more consistent with the politics of hope. If a candidate appeals to fear, they may likely give attention to things that might need gone improper or have gone improper. Conversely, in the event that they give attention to hope, they may likely give attention to what might go right in the long run.
I discovered that Trump consistently made more negative statements than Harris across each of the six segments, with values starting from 33% to 166%.
For example, Trump used negative statements and words like “totally destroy” and “catastrophe” 12 times in a 30-second section. Harris used negative statements or words only seven times in her 30-second response.
The tenor of the terms also varied: Trump's negative words tended to be stronger, akin to “violent,” “very terrible,” and “ridiculous.” Overall, Trump made a mean of about 61 percent more negative statements than Harris in all of the segments I analyzed.
Shorter sentences
Then I checked out sentence length. I assumed shorter sentences might convey a way of urgency that may be more related to fear, and longer sentences may be more fluid and calm and subsequently more related to hope. I checked out three paragraphs from the unique set of six.
Intuitively, one might think that short statements are an indication of directness and a direct approach to problems, but that shouldn’t be necessarily the case. For example, one among Trump's relatively short statements, “The agreement said you should do that, this, this, this, and this, they usually didn’t do it,” might be seen as evasive since it shouldn’t be specific enough for a listener to guage for themselves whether or not something was completed. And yet it is easy and short, made just a little longer only by the repetition of the “this.”
In the primary section I analyzed, the typical sentence length for Trump was 13 words, while for Harris it was 17 words. The gap widened within the second section, where the typical sentence length for Trump was 14 words, while for Harris it was 25 words. This pattern was the identical within the third section as well.
Talking in regards to the future
Finally, I examined how they talked in regards to the future and the past and whether or not they talked more about one or the opposite. This may very well be a possible indication of their greater reliance on fear and hope.
Usually, within the context of fear, the recent past is used as a time to flee from, while the more distant past is a time to return to. In contrast, individuals who give attention to hope give attention to Looking to the long run.
When I analyzed their closing remarks, I discovered that each candidates referenced the past equally often, but in very alternative ways. Most of Harris's references to the past were related to the incontrovertible fact that Trump often focuses on it. For example, she said there was “an try and take us back” and continued, “We are usually not going back.”
Trump, however, was more prone to talk in regards to the perceived failures of his opponents previously, akin to: “They had 3.5 hours to repair the border.” He also talked about his own past successes, akin to: “I rebuilt our entire military.”
As for future statements, all 4 of Trump's statements revolved around what he thought would occur if his opponent won. For example, he said, “If she wins the election, fracking will end in Pennsylvania on day one.”
Harris made nine “future” statements, all of which related to what she plans to do. For example, she said, “And once I'm president, we're going to do that for all people, knowing that I'm helping to be certain that access to health care needs to be a right and not only a privilege for individuals who can afford it.”
In her closing argument, Harris also summarized each the talk and the outcomes of my research:
“You have heard tonight two very different visions for our country. One is concentrated on the long run, the opposite on the past. And an try and take us back. But we are usually not going back.”
The end result of the election will show whether the American voter is currently more fearful or hopeful. The next few weeks will definitely provide lots of data for linguistic evaluation.
