Researchers report that Donald Trump's confident and simple style of communication is consistent with long-term trends in political communication. Although Trump's rhetoric might seem different than the communicative styles of past American presidents, it may actually be part of a trend. To explore this notion, Kayla N. Jordan and colleagues analyzed several texts: presidential corpora of all American presidents (including State of the Union and inaugural addresses) from 1789-2018, speeches and interviews of Australian, British, and Canadian political leaders from 1895-2017, American, Australian, British, and Canadian legislative texts (such as debates and floor speeches) from 1994-2016, and transcripts of novels, mainstream news, and movies from 1789-2017. All texts were examined for analytic thinking and clout. High analytic thinking was defined as using more articles and prepositions than words associated with an intuitive style, such as adverbs and auxiliary verbs. Clout was measured by how often texts mentioned words that signify confidence and status, such as personal pronouns. The authors found that analytic thinking decreased while clout substantially increased in every presidential corpus since 1900. Similar trends starting around 1980 were detected in the communicative rhetoric of foreign leaders, although they were weaker among British leaders. CNN programming from 2000-2016 also mirrored the political communicative trend. According to the authors, the findings suggest that voters may be drawn to leaders who can deliver simple messages with confidence.
Article #18-11987: "Examining long-term trends in politics and culture through language of political leaders and cultural institutions," by Kayla N. Jordan, Joanna Sterling, James W. Pennebaker, and Ryan L. Boyd.
MEDIA CONTACT: Kayla N. Jordan, University of Texas at Austin, TX; tel: 731-612-3856; email: kaylajordan@utexas.edu
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