Meredith Shiner

Variety in Laguage/Carter
Final Paper
May 2, 2008

“It’s about the language, stupid”: How words, dialect, and tone affect presidential
candidates and the public’s perception of them

In one of the most embroiled presidential primary seasons in the history of the

American government, one thing has become exceedingly clear: words are everything.

Under the intense microscope of a 24-hour media set on finding story lines, language has

inadvertently come to the forefront of national discourse—from the dialect of a black

preacher and the culture of black churches to candidates changing their inflections to

match their audiences at town hall meetings and rallies south of the Mason-Dixon line. In

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, American voters see the first legitimate black and

female candidates, respectively, and their language in different setting reveals a lot about

the difficulties not only in being Commander-in-Chief but also in being the representative

of an entire country.

The careful and critical balance of words and politics when it comes to the “leader

of the free world,” however, is not unique to this election cycle or these two candidates.

Image is everything. Many voted for George W. Bush because they felt as if they could

have a beer with him, and that perception is in part grounded by his basic speech style

and southern accent. He was almost a foil to the New England reared and educated John

Kerry, who was painted as an elite intellectual by comparison. JFK spoke with a thick

accent; FDR began the casual dialogue with the American people in the form of “fireside

chats.” Words have the power to divide, to calm, and to empower—particularly when you

are in a position to have everyone listen. This paper aims to examine the history of
Presidential dialect and language and the ideological, racial, and gender-based biases that

affect speakers in order to better understand the 2008 Election and why language will

play a fundamental role in choosing our next president.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ‘RHETORICAL PRESIDENCY’:

As the media grew more sophisticated and expansive, the 20th century became the

pivotal period for the emergence of presidential language and speech to the forefront of

American politics. This era of the “rhetorical presidency,” in which presidential speeches

became the lifeblood of communication began when Theodore Roosevelt was sworn into

the Oval Office in 1901 and declared it a “bully pulpit.” According to English professor

Carol Gelderman, Roosevelt “established the idea that the president has a direct

relationship with the people.” What Roosevelt established, Gelderman claims, Woodrow

Wilson institutionalized and Franklin Delano Roosevelt cemented.1 FDR, the creator of

the fireside chat, has one of the most analyzed voices in the history of the American

presidency. With Roosevelt’s the more casual form of address, “Americans had the warm

feeling that they personally knew their president,” who was recognized as much for the

delivery of his words than of the words themselves.2 Professors Earnest Brandenberg and

Waldo Braden broke down what made Roosevelt’s speech style so effective, from his

vocal quality to pitch to speaking rate (he averaged approximately 100 words per minute)

to use of loudness as separate factors.3 Roosevelt was also known for prolonging stressed

vowels, dropping the preconsonantal final and intervocalic r, and several unusual

diphthongs. All of these slight modifications were considered “cultivated Eastern”

1
Gelderman, Carol, “All the Presidents’ Words.” The Wilson Quarterly. Vol. 19, spring
(1995), pg 70.
2
Bradenburg, Earnest and Waldo W. Braden. “Franklin D. Roosevelts Voice and
Pronunciation.” The Quarterly Journal of Speech. 38 (1952), pg. 23.
3
Ibid, 24.
pronunciations at the time.4 Through some of the most difficult times this country has

seen—from the Great Depression to World War II—it was FDR’s diction, syntax, and

cadence that helped calm a nation:

“The cues in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s voice—the voice alone—

inspired confidence [in his inaugural address in 1933]... If Herbert Hoover

has spoken the same words into the microphone, the stock market would

have fallen another notch and the public confidence with it.”5

Perhaps Lew Sarett and William Foster, the authors who wrote the excerpt above,

were being somewhat hyperbolic; the substance behind the words spoken by the most

powerful man in the world obviously bear meaning as well. But, it’s not just academics

who believe that image and composure are actually the most important elements to a

successful presidency. Soon after FDR’s time, impressing the American public over the

radio waves would become obsolete. In 1960, the first presidential debates were aired on

television, and a young Senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy debated

Richard Nixon, making his opponent look old and weak by comparison. After that night,

Nixon became obsessed with the superficial, becoming “convinced that the perceived

image of what a president is and does is far more important than the reality.”6

Nixon’s analysis, although likely born out of his own paranoia and jealousy over

the debate of 1960, ultimately proved prescient and statistically accurate. In 2004, a

group of professors came together to research the interpersonal communication styles of

presidential candidates to see if they could determine what traits could predict an

4
Ibid, 26-28
5
Ibid, 23.
6
Gelderman, Carol, “All the Presidents’ Words.” The Wilson Quarterly. Vol. 19, spring
(1995), pg 75.
election’s winner. Their findings likely would not surprise Nixon. Their study looked at

five factors for the candidates (thoughtful, egalitarian interaction style; conviviality; self-

confidence, social presence, assertiveness; aggressive verbal attack; ability to speak with

great volume and force, compelling gestures) and then measured the perception of those

factors in the electorate. The correlations were then calculated to determine which

characteristics were the most important in a candidate’s presentation of himself. The

results are displayed in the tables below7:

7
Stephen, Timothy, Teresa M. Harrison, William Husson, and David Albert.
“Interpersonal Communication Styles of Political Candidates: Predicting Winning and
Losing Candidates in three U.S. Presidential Elections.” Presidential Candidate Images.
Ed. Kenneth Hacker. Landham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004.
 It’s interesting to note that poise, presence, and gestures play such significant

roles for voters in deciding what is favorable for them in a presidential candidate. The

authors conjecture that in the voters’ minds, these communication characteristics translate

into cues for other desirable character traits: “Perceptions of personal traits might well be

founded upon the perceptions of communication behaviors and constitute the basis upon

which trait judgments might be made.”8 The power of these perceptions is perhaps what

leads Gelderman to declare that President Jimmy Carter’s public talking, which was

oftentimes “preachy, disjointed, and poorly delivered... had landed him in the White

House, just as surely propelled him out of it.”9 Or that George W. Bush was the kind of
8
Stephen, Timothy, Teresa M. Harrison, William Husson, and David Albert.
“Interpersonal Communication Styles of Political Candidates: Predicting Winning and
Losing Candidates in three U.S. Presidential Elections.” Presidential Candidate Images.
Ed. Kenneth Hacker. Landham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004, 192.
9
Gelderman, Carol, “All the Presidents’ Words.” The Wilson Quarterly. Vol. 19, spring
guy with whom a voter would like to have a beer.

ELECTION 2000: DID LANGUAGE SET THE TABLE FOR AN OBAMA RUN?

Although Bush may have capitalized on the “beer vote” mentioned above, he also

employed other linguistic tactics that helped to ingratiate him to the electorate, whether

voters were aware of it or not. In a 2004 study, Alan Cienki of Emory University

analyzed the patterns of speech employed by Bush and his Democratic opponent, Al

Gore, in a series of three October debates in 2000. Cienki’s examination was filtered

through the lens of Strict Father versus Nurturing Parent metaphors, and under the

assumption that Republicans typically embrace the former in their rhetoric and

Democrats the latter. The Strict Father model operates around the idea that the speaker is

“father like” in the sense that he explicitly demonstrates moral “strength” and “authority”

with his words (i.e. “solid men and women,” “strong morals”).10 The Nurturing Parent

model, then, is when the speaker adopts the a group-effort-type tone that focuses on the

community moving forward together (i.e. “lead by example,” “find the tools”). In the

2000 election, Bush tended to rely on metaphorical language much more than Gore, and

primarily adopted a Strict Father tone. Cienki cites the discrepancies in diction and syntax

between the two candidates as potential bases for the vast differences in how they were

perceived:

“Experimental research in cognitive psychology has shown the important

role that figurative language can have in evoking an emotional response in

others, and that text passages that incorporate metaphorical language are

(1995), pg 76.
10
Cienki, Alan. “Bush and Gore’s language and gestures in the 2000 presidential debates:
a test case for two models of metaphors.” Journal of Language and Politics 3:3 (204), pg
410.
 perceived clearer and more memorable. Bush’s repetition of certain

metaphoric buzz words is one factor which could contribute to the popular

perception of him as more ‘folksy’ than Gore.”11

Cienki goes on to explain that conservatives have an advantage over liberals

politically because they are more likely to use metaphors consistently in their political

talk, and metaphor-laced language tends to stick in the minds of voters.12 This does not

mean, however, that Strict Father based rhetoric is always more effective (Presidential

hopeful Barack Obama has based his entire message around Nurturing Parent principles

such as “coming together” and the pronouns “we” and the verb construction “to build”).

Neither does it mean that Bush is a superior speaker; isolating the 2000 debates ignores

Bush’s other oratory flaws. In fact, some argue that Bush’s deficiencies in public

speaking have actually set the stage for Obama. Mark Davis, who was a speechwriter for

Bush’s father, said that it would matter how excellent the president’s speechwriting team

is, Bush would never be able to deliver the words as they should be. “With that slouchy

posture and exaggerated Texas accent,” Davis says, Even the most beautiful speech is all

but doomed.” That quote, taken from a March 2008 newspaper article, was used to

contextualize the following hypothesis put forth by the author to try to explain Obama’s

success: “We’ve been so deprived of the music of a good political speech,” the article

continues, “That Obama’s words are a siren song, luring voters to take a risk on an

unknown quantity.”13
11
Ibid., 424
12
Cienki, Alan. “Bush and Gore’s language and gestures in the 2000 presidential debates:
a test case for two models of metaphors.” Journal of Language and Politics 3:3 (204),
pg. 434.
13
Weir, William, “Spotlight Shining Again on Public Speaking.” The Hartford Courant.
ELECTION 2008: LINGUISTICS, GENDER, RACE, AND REGION

Great speeches aren’t just spoken, they’re heard—an Obama “siren song” almost

certainly sounds different to different audience members. And oftentimes, it’s sung

differently. Ever since the beginning of the presidency, candidates have had the daunting

tasks of trying to appeal and represent all Americans. One of the most effective ways to

reach out to diverse sections of the population is to speak with them directly, and the

“local address” has emerged as one of a candidate’s best options and is used “to speak to

voters where they live, both literally and figuratively.”14 To do so, a candidate must make

the people with whom they are speaking—let’s say for example’s sake, North Carolinians

—feel as if they are a unique group of people (without of course, implying that they are

inherently better than any other group).15 Despite the importance of local speeches over

the centuries, the 2008 cycle has changed the landscape slightly as the first legitimate

female and black contenders have brought a more intense social scrutiny on the workings

of campaigns. The media berates Hillary Clinton for speaking with a southern drawl at a

campaign stop in Selma, Ala., as Obama gets criticized for taking on different tones when

he speaking in front of a predominantly black audience versus a white audience. But the

question is whether the adoption of an affectation can be genuine—Clinton claims the

twang is from her eight year’s in the Arkansas governor’s mansion—and if so, should

candidates alter their speech and natural dialects to suit an audience? There was a

particularly large amount of publicity last spring surrounding Clinton, the New York

Senator, as she adopted a southern accent south of the Mason-Dixon line. Many political

4 March 2008.
14
Beasley, Vannessa, “Making Diversity Safe for Democracy: American Pluralism and
the Presidential Local Address, 1885-1992.” Quarterly Journal of Speech. Vol. 87, No. 1
(2001), pg. 25.
15
Ibid., 25
pundits and columnists, such as Eric Zorn from The Chicago Tribune, questioned

Clinton’s motives and sincerity in speaking with a southern accent. “I can see where

blacks could feel flattered,” Zorn said. “She shows she cares about us by adopting our

speech patterns!—or offended, Don’t pretend you’re one of us when you’re not.”16 The

language differences between blacks and whites, men and women (of which the

physiology will be discussed shortly) seem to fuel the “identity politics” that pundits have

so eagerly cited as definitive in this election, with women voting for Clinton and men for

Obama.

Clinon, though, still wanted the opportunity to defend her adaptation of the

Southern dialect in front of a group of supporters:

"I’ see people are talking and writing, a lot of people who aren't

necessarily as excited about me,’ Clinton said. ‘They say, 'Well, you

know, Hillary Clinton, she went to Selma, Ala. ... and it sounded like she

wuz tawkin' Suthern. I've been thinking about that, and I lived about a

third of my life in Arkansas, and I lived about a third of my life in Illinois,

and I've lived about a third of my life on the East Coast. I think America is

ready for a multilingual President.”17

I find these comments interesting for several reasons: first, it speaks to the

tenuous distinctions drawn between language and dialect (although that might have been

16
Zorn, Eric. “Hillary’s Temporary Accent.” The Chicago Tribune. 11 March 2007.
17
McAuliffe, Michael, “Well ah am from Arkansas!: Hil defends her ‘multilingual’ use
of southern drawl.” New York Daily News. 27 April 2007. Online. Available.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2007/04/28/2007-04-
28_well_ah_am_from_arkansas_.html
inadvertent metalinguistic commentary on Clinton’s part); secondly, I think this also

touches on a presidential candidate’s desire to enable the voters to see him or her in

themselves. There is a lot of pressure in trying to represent such a large group and diverse

group of citizens—and, as mentioned earlier, words are probably the most important

means to reach out to those voters. In fact, UCLA psychology professor Albert

Mehrabian conducted research revealing that when people decide whether they like a

candidate, his or her tone of voice accounts for 38 percent of their opinion, body

language 55 percent, and the actual words a mere seven percent.18 Accordingly, many

candidates have even been known to hire outside voice coaches to train them to give

speeches that will appeal to the voters.

In the same article that presented the Mehrabian data, author June Kronholtz

speaks with other linguists who confirm that their research has found that candidates with

deeper voices tend to win elections. Like the example provided by Franklin Delano

Roosevelt earlier, candidates with deeper voices tend to be able to generate a calming

aura that provides voters with a sense of security. University of Texas communications

professor John Daly said, “A deep voice connotes dominance, expertise, and credibility....

There’s a certain sense of automatic credibility.”19

This is yet another example, however, of how language is processes through a

socio-linguistically filtered lens: high-pitched voices aren’t as comforting. Does this have

to do with the physics of how higher-pitched sounds hits our eardrums or is it rather a

social construct that’s been ingrained in us: women have higher voices, therefore, higher-

18
Kronholz, June, “Talk is Cheap in Politics, But a Deep Voice Helps; Vocal Experts
Measure Candidates’ Likability; Toting Up ‘Ums’ and “Ahs.’” Wall Street Journal. New
York, NY: Nov. 3, 2007, pg. A1.
19
Ibid.
pitched voices are less dominant, expertise, or credible. So Clinton is at a disadvantage

for being a woman and Obama gets the benefit of having a deeper baritone voice more

typical to blacks. This same study found that faster speakers are generally interpreted as

more competent, while fully acknowledging that older candidates tend to speak much

slower (disadvantage: John McCain). Again, what is at the root of this instinctive

interpretation? Is it because faster speakers are really more competent or are we

inherently skeptical of older candidates and their ability to lead? The line between what

Americans construe as strong vocal performances and weak ones is thin and blurry. A

candidate who speaks with too many disfluencies—“ums,” “likes,” “ahs”—sounds

unprepared to us; a candidate with too few might strike us as too scripted or not

thoughtful enough.

“Their vocal chords—as much as the substance of their words,” Daly says,

“Could influence who becomes the next president.”20

America has come a long way since the fireside chats of FDR—every brilliant

speech is spliced and replayed on cable news networks and youtube, every gaffe

magnified by the same media exposure. Barack Obama can speak with the passion of a

black pastor at a rally in front of 5,000 supporters and speak candidly with a talk show

host. Hillary Clinton can use the Strict Father construction of “obliterating Iran” in one

moment after having cried on camera only weeks before. Regardless of the methods used,

the diction carefully crafted, or the audiences targeted, presidents are in the unique

position to speak words that have the potential to last forever. Maybe that’s why voters

pay so much attention to what’s being said. We’re listening to history in the making. One

word at a time.
20
Ibid.
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