Words and Their Ways in Campaign '08

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4945901
AutoresRoderick P Hart (University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA,, autor correspondente), Colene J Lind (0000-0003-4394-1161, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA)
Ano2010
Volume54
Fascículo4
Páginas355-381
Data de publicação2010-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0002764210381712
OpenAlexW2059861704
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas11
Referências 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