Words and Their Ways in Campaign '08

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4945901
AutoresRoderick P Hart (University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA,, autor de correspondencia), Colene J Lind (0000-0003-4394-1161, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA)
Año2010
Volumen54
Número4
Páginas355-381
Fecha de publicación2010-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0002764210381712
OpenAlexW2059861704
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas17

This study reports certain lexical patterns produced during the general election of campaign 2008 by Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. As such, it continues a series of tracings begun a dozen years ago under the rubric of the Campaign Mapping Project. This is largely a descriptive project employing computerized language analysis, making specific use of the DICTION 5.0 program. The authors examine some 700 speech passages delivered during the primaries of 2007 and the general election of 2008 and compare them to around 4,000 passages from the 1948 through 2004 presidential campaigns. Overall, they find that popular understanding of the Obama style-that he is fiery, poetic, optimistic, and grandiloquent-to be wrong. Instead, they find Obama to be cautious, grounded, and highly focused. McCain, in contrast, was personal in style, quite partisan (as are most losing presidential candidates), and highly embellished. Obama's "cool" style differed dramatically from McCain's "emotional" style, thereby providing both a political and rhetorical contrast for voters during the 2008 campaign

Art · Diction · Epithet · Literature · Mathematics education · Media studies · Poetry · Political science · Politics · Presidential campaign · Presidential system · Rhetorical question · Rubric · Sociology · Style (visual arts) · Digital Communication and Language · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Law · Psychology · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism