Why do politicians talk like that?

[MUSIC PLAYING] FLORA LICHTMAN: Hey, it’s Flora, and you’re listening to Science Friday. With the midterms approaching in less than a month, politicians are out in full force trying to convince voters to elect them. And that means that we are hearing a lot of this.

SPEAKER 1: All right. I know this crowd loves freedom.

SPEAKER 2: Everywhere I went, people told me the same thing. It just shouldn’t be this hard. Shouldn’t be this hard to afford a second bag of groceries.

SPEAKER 3: You see, Georgia’s where I built my business. It’s where I raised my family. It’s where I learned the hard lessons that helped me to deliver every day in Washington.

SPEAKER 4: I’ll go into the lion’s den because I know what I believe.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Politician speak– I know you know it when you hear it. It’s those folksy, turns of phrase, the vague promises. But what do linguists have to say about this vocal register? Has politician speak changed over time? Does how someone pronounce their A’s signal something about their values? Here to help us decode politician speak is Dr. Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno. Welcome back, Valerie.

VALERIE FRIDLAND: Oh, thank you. So exciting to be here because there’s just so much to talk about. It’s where to start, not what to say.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Absolutely. And so glad to have you back. I mean, last time we had you on, we asked you about sports announcer register. Is there a political register?

VALERIE FRIDLAND: I think everybody knows the answer to that. And we’re hearing a lot of it these days. Absolutely. And in fact, I think there’s not just a political register that defines more general political speak. There’s actually a partisan register that even defines the way Democrats versus Republicans speak.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Well, let’s get into the details. So first of all, just the broad political register. What characterizes it in terms of cadence or sentence structure or word choice?

VALERIE FRIDLAND: Well, word choice is obviously very, very important because messaging is so important. And so there’s a lot of repetition. Especially as you get closer to elections, we find that actually the register shifts slightly, where you might get into more complex explanations of issues earlier in a campaign or when there’s really no election looming. As you get closer to elections, the messaging gets shorter. It gets simpler. It’s more direct. It gets more emotional in tone. So it’s sort of trying to drive up and galvanize the people that need to get out there and vote.

And certainly, I think, what we’re hearing a lot of in this election cycle, particularly with the Republican Party this cycle, is things about radical beliefs and extremism and socialism and communism. And then on the flip side, it’s really the Democrats homing in on the affordability issues. So we’re hearing a lot about that– food, gas prices, housing. So the words change, but the repetition and driving home of whatever the talking points for that election cycle doesn’t.

FLORA LICHTMAN: But I mean, even on things like affordability, sometimes the words change, but often they don’t. I feel there are these stock phrases, like “money in your pocket.” Why is it always “money in your pocket” or “bag of groceries?”‘ They just feel like cliches, like verbal tics almost.

VALERIE FRIDLAND: Well, they’re cliches, but they’re also highly relatable. And one thing that we’ve seen that has really been driven home to both Republican and Democratic candidates is that they have to be relatable, authentic, and believable. And that’s actually changed over time.

So since the ’90s, we really see this bigger attention paid to making sure that they come across as honest, relatable, sort of storytellers, instead of elitist, sage on the stage kinds of people. And what’s been fascinating is the trends in the last century in terms of what’s happening with that kind of language.

We have a lot of both written and orally recorded evidence from presidential state of the union addresses and inaugural speeches. But also we have hundreds of thousands of data points from congressional speeches over the last 140 years. So I think it’s starting in maybe 1873 we have congressional speeches, so we can analyze that. And a lot of data scientists have done exactly that.

One key finding is it’s becoming simpler. It’s becoming less complex. But the basic thing we’re finding is that we are becoming more about relatable politicians and less about politicians that debate the issues themselves and come up with a lot of empirical evidence to support their arguments.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Like more I think, I feel, I believe, and less the data show.

VALERIE FRIDLAND: Absolutely. So one of the studies actually looked for words like “analysis,” “investigate,” “evidenced,” “data.” And then they also compared it to things like “my viewpoint,” “my opinion,” “I believe,” “I feel,” those kinds of words.

FLORA LICHTMAN: So funny, because the list that you mentioned that’s falling out of favor is, like, 98% of the words that we use on this show.

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VALERIE FRIDLAND: Right. Well, Science Friday says it all, I think. I mean, I think one of the things that all these studies stress is we’re not saying that people are becoming dumber or less complex, but it means that what has shifted is what we want from a politician.

FLORA LICHTMAN: It’s interesting to me that this really started happening in the ’90s. Why then?

VALERIE FRIDLAND: There are a number of different studies that all point to the ’90s as being pivotal, but actually they show that a lot of the trends started in the ’70s. What you see is really, prior to the ’70s, political ideology and partisanship was something that was more in the political elite realm. So politicians argued with other politicians, but everyday people probably didn’t have the same sort of partisanship in their language at the time. The strata of middle class has increased since World War II greatly.

So as people became more educated and had more time to worry about issues, social issues, the political divides that the elites had became the political divides that the population had, and they were more interested in some of the issues that were coming up in the 1960s, late ’60s, and ’70s, which were things like civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights.

All these social issues that became more prominent and more important in people’s daily lives that people actually could relate to, they really galvanized sort of ideological divides between the right and the left. And then, also, the wherewithal of political strategists recognizing this power. And so in the 1990s, particularly the Republicans really jumped on this political buzzword bandwagon that really sold their platform to the people.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Was there a concerted effort? Was there someone behind this, actually?

VALERIE FRIDLAND: Yes, there was. And that’s, I think, what would surprise most people, because we think of these words just catching on. But the reality is, in the 1990s, there were two things that were important. One was Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, which really tried to make politics about what people want. So if we get elected, within 100 days, we’re going to do x number of things.

And then there was a strategist and pollster named Frank Luntz at the time, who had realized that the power of talking points was immense. So he wrote a playbook, essentially a guidebook, to the language that Republican politicians should be using at this time that Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America was using some of that language. So he had informed that, and then he informed political candidates on the Republican side to use words like, instead of “undocumented worker,” “illegal immigrant” or “illegal alien” at that time. Instead of “tax breaks,” which is what a lot of times the Democrats were talking about, he wanted to give “tax reform” and “tax relief.”

He also wanted to characterize Washington as being an inside group that didn’t have your interests in their heart. And so instead of saying “government spending” or something like that, he advised Republican candidates to say things like “the Washington takeover” of whatever and “Washington spending.” So blame it on Washington, especially if there was a Democrat in the White House. And that way, you could make yourself seem anti-establishment and fighting for the little people.

And that really was powerful and influential on speech that was to come. The Democrats were slower at picking it up. But there’s a lot of research that has suggested that Democrats are seen as sort of lecturers rather than communicators. And in part, that’s because they hadn’t really started to use this language of the people as readily and as quickly as Republicans had.

FLORA LICHTMAN: We have to take a break, but when we come back, we’re going to get into accents and all of the secret information your vowel pronunciation is conveying.

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FLORA LICHTMAN: Let’s talk about “Ih-rack” versus “Ih-rock.” You’ve written about this. Break it down for me.

VALERIE FRIDLAND: Yes, there have been a number of different studies done in the last couple of decades on pronunciation and politics. And one of the really interesting studies that was done was in 2007 it looked at pronunciation of “Ih-rack” or “Ih-rock” during the 2007 congressional debates. What we find was that Republicans tended towards the more Americanized pronunciation, “Ee-rack” or “Ih-rack,” depending on the front vowel, and that Democrats tended towards “Ih-rock.” And this seemed to be the biggest predictor of that pronunciation, is their political partisanship. And war stance, as well, was part of that.

But when we look at how everyday people say these words, studies that were done subsequent to this did not find that correlation. And actually, those studies also looked at “Ih-ron” and “Ih-ran” pronunciation. And if you said, so do you think there is some political messaging from the way people pronounce the word “Ih-ron,” then they found that people did say, oh yes, you’re more liberal if you say “Ih-ron,” and you’re more conservative if you say “Ih-ran.”

So people seem to have that sensitivity when it was made explicit that it was a politically-charged question. But in their own everyday talk, they didn’t do this, which seems to suggest that politicians are aware of, at some level, how this more pro-nationalist pronunciation or pro-international pronunciation plays a role in how they are perceived by the groups that they want to support them.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I mean, is there something about the A vowel that’s– like, I was just thinking, as I was prepping for this, there are other A’s that feel like a tell, like “tuh-may-toe,” “tuh-mah-toe” is a– “ant,” “aw-nt,” right? There’s something about the A that can come off as snooty, maybe, or perceived as snooty. What is going on there?

VALERIE FRIDLAND: Well, as one might say, the A’s have it, because A is a very interesting vowel. So the snootiness you’re talking about seems to be a fairly new thing, because the “ah” to “aw” snootiness transition didn’t really happen until the late 18th century, early 19th century, and it was particularly prominent in American English that “aw,” saying “aw-nt” instead of “ant” was the New England posh style to speak in until World War II.

And then that sort of stuck around as being the fancy way of pronouncing that word. And that seems to have pushed us into using “aw” instead of “ah” for a lot of words borrowed into English since that time, which is why Americans say “paw-sta,” not “pah-sta.” And we also don’t say “nah-cho” or “tah-co.” We say “naw-cho” and “taw-co.”

FLORA LICHTMAN: Most of us.

VALERIE FRIDLAND: And those are because they’re fairly– right, most of us. We have this alternation between these two vowels because it depends on how many languages you speak. Languages without the “ah” tend to favor “aw” pronunciation. And then we also find political identity influences that pronunciation.

So it’s probably not just happenstance that it’s the “aw” vowel that’s playing a role in the pronunciation of both “Ih-ron” and “Ih-rock.” It’s because it’s a vowel that has been variable and has ideological meaning in terms of both poshness and snootiness, but also in terms of foreignness and internationalism, because it’s so prevalent in foreign languages. And so people that are more open to diversity and more multilingual will tend to actually pronounce “aw” over “ah.”

FLORA LICHTMAN: What a lot of information that one vowel is packing. It’s amazing.

VALERIE FRIDLAND: Yes, it is. Absolutely.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Let me ask you a couple more questions, and we’ll let you go. Accents– how do they play a role in political speak?

VALERIE FRIDLAND: Now, this is really some interesting research that’s been done recently, because one of the things that we’ve found with accent research– and this is my own research that I do– is on particularly the Southern accent, but also all major regional accents are fading away in the generations, starting with Generation X. So boomers are much more regionally accented than Gen Z. So by the time you get to Gen Z, a lot of times people are like, they don’t even have an accent. So you can be in a large city in the South, like Atlanta or Raleigh, North Carolina, and really not be able to hear that much of a Southern accent among young speakers.

And a separate body of research has found that when you play for just everyday listeners a accented speaker talking political issues, no matter whether those political issues are partisan or not, if you play them a speaker with a Southern accent, they seem to automatically hear them as being more right leaning and conservative. And not only that, you actually find a correlation that those with heavier Southern accents tend to be more Republican and more right leaning, and those with less tend to be more liberal and having had voted Democratic.

So that tells us that actually, in urban areas of the South, that maybe the Southern accent is receding in part because of its strong ties to political ideology, that young Gen Z people in these urban areas in the South don’t want to necessarily be heard as being conservative. And since it’s become so strongly associated with conservative issues and stances, that they’re actually moving away from that accent, not just because of social media, but also because of the political ideology it stands for.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Just as I’m listening to you talk, I’m thinking about how much is happening subsurface. How conscious do you think we are of these trends or the meaning that is imbued in the way that we talk?

VALERIE FRIDLAND: Well, it is amazing to me how much we without knowing. We don’t think about how we pronounce our vowels. We’re not saying, OK, I’m going to use “aw” here, not “ah.” That’s completely just arbitrary. So part of this unconsciousness of it is the models we have when we’re young are the things that really influence us. And we also tend to have a bias towards speaking people we want to be like.

There is an attention paid to speech at some level. When we say things like we’re a politician and we’re pronouncing the name of a country that we’re at war with and we have a choice between variants that are widespread. And if you notice with this last six-month period, who was saying “Ih-ran” versus “Ih-ron,” well, Trump and Vance both said “Ih-ran” as we began our attack.

And so I think that’s a pro-nationalist ideology that you’re expressing with that. And we found that with Vietnam too. So most people say “Viet-nom” now, but during the Vietnam War, it was very frequent to say “Viet-nam” to Americanize it. And I think– well, I’m not sure people think about it before they do it. It’s at a subconscious level, there’s some reflection about what messaging the pronunciation is giving.

And “Viet-nam” distances us from this country we’re at war with. “Ih-ran” distances us from this country that we’re at war with. And so I think, in that level, it is a little more conscious than maybe having a Southern accent being politically charged.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Mm. Valerie Fridland is a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno, and author of Why We Talk Funny, The Real Story Behind Our Accents. Thanks for coming on, Valerie. It’s always such a pleasure.

VALERIE FRIDLAND: So much fun. Thanks for having me again.

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FLORA LICHTMAN: This episode was produced by Dee Peterschmidt. One more thing– Science Friday is a finalist for Best Science Podcast in the Signal Awards, and we need your vote. If you love the show, please vote for us. Sciencefriday.com/signal will take you right there. Thanks for listening. I’m Flora Lichtman.

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