What Linguistic Analysis of the 2024 Debate Reveals About Harris, Trump, Walz and Vance

Debate linguistics reveals political dynamics in 2024 elections

Written by Kelso Harper

Words matter in election debates. So scientific american We asked a linguist to provide an expert analysis of the recent presidential and vice presidential debates.

Nicole Holliday is an acting associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a sociophonologist who studies the relationship between language and social identity. Part of her research focuses on political speech, and she is writing a book about what it means to sound presidential. I previously spoke with Holliday on the podcast. science fast. During that episode, she discussed her research on the speaking style of current vice president and presidential candidate Kamala Harris, which she has been researching since 2019. In the video below, Holliday identifies interesting language patterns in all of the candidates.

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Analyzing Kamala Harris’ speech pattern in recent presidential debates

Throughout this election cycle, Holliday has noticed that Harris sounds more formal, sophisticated and like a “traditional president.” During September’s presidential debate, Harris even borrowed a phrase from former President Barack Obama when she adapted his famous refrain, “Let’s be clear,” into her own “Let’s be clear.” Ta. But Holliday said that while Harris has started to speak in a more mainstream way, especially on issues like the economy and immigration, she still has African-American roots when talking about more personal topics like race and women’s rights. He points out that it shows the characteristics of American English. In the video, Holliday explains how Harris sounded like herself in the debate, simply doing so “on the model of a presidential speaker.”

President Trump may adopt a New York accent when he feels threatened

Presidential candidates often drop some regional accents and adopt more mainstream features in order to sound more formal or presidential, Holliday explains. Both Harris and former President Donald Trump have done this to varying degrees. However, sometimes that “sociolinguistic monitoring device” goes off and the candidate’s accent comes through even more strongly. This happened during a presidential debate, during which President Trump repeatedly referred to terrorism as “terr-ah” and scary things as “harrible.” In this video, Holliday explains his theory of why this happened, based on tactics used in language research.

How vice presidential candidates tried to ‘beat the Midwest’ against each other in recent debates

In the vice presidential debate, both Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz leaned heavily into their Midwestern identities, Holliday said. They adopted a classic Midwestern congeniality, often referred to as “Minnesota nice guys,” and repeatedly referenced their humble Middle American upbringing. In contrast to the vice presidential candidates, a billionaire from New York City and a woman of color from California, respectively, Walz and Vance are both seen as more of a “default”; Holliday said the idea was to reinforce that “regular guy.” ” status through their language in the discussion.

How word choices reflect our political leanings

People can live in very different linguistic worlds depending on their political leanings and media environments, Holliday explains in this video. She introduces a linguistic phenomenon called “shibboleths.” This is a word, phrase, or pronunciation that distinguishes one group from another. Vance’s use of certain terms such as “illegal alien” and “criminal immigrant” (AS12) during the Vice Presidential debate is an egregious indication of his political affiliation.