The Politics of Language | Metaglossia: The Translation World | Scoop.it
From www.psychologytoday.com - September 8, 9:41 AM

Research suggests that our political leanings are revealed in the way we use language.

Key points

  • Studies suggest that how we talk may reveal our political leanings.
  • Online hyper-partisan speech follows a specific linguistic style.
  • Political partisanship in Congressional speech has dramatically increased.
Increasing political divides
Source: Larisa/Pixabay

Every election cycle, we are surrounded by highly politicized talk via ads and social media as well as from relatives, friends and neighbors. Certain behaviors have also become linked to people’s political affiliation, ranging from wearing a mask to wearing a MAGA hat. More surprising, though, is that how we talk, more than the content of what we say, can signal our political leanings.

 

Signaling left or right

One study that looked at politically based subreddits within the larger Reddit community found that people who were hyper-partisan, i.e., more extreme to the left or right in political views, used a different style of language compared to those in non-partisan political subreddits.

 

The basic premise of the study was that, when people were strongly invested in having others agree with them, they would adopt a more intimate informal linguistic style. This includes using things that are common in spontaneous spoken conversation like discourse markers (like, you know, I mean) and lots of “I” or “you” pronouns as if they were personally conversing with post readers, as well as swear words and exclamation marks.

 

When comparing posts on subreddits that were clearly left- or right-leaning compared to subreddits that were trying to encourage diverse or politically neutral views, they found that hyper-partisan subreddits indeed used more of these features, while non hyper-partisan sites tended to use less of those, but more third-person pronouns (she, he, or they), quotes, and periods.

 

Whether a site was left-leaning or right-leaning also made a difference, with left-leaning sites in particular using more swear words and “I” pronouns.

Why would we find these differences? Guided by prior studies, the researchers suggest that partisanship is usually strongly emotive and speakers who are highly politicized hope to engage those with similar views by creating a sense of closeness and community.

 

Informal language features help to establish intimacy in this way in part because they come across as more spontaneous and conversational—which is typically the channel through which we forge shared opinions.

The researchers suggest using swear words helped to convey emotional intensity and their results showed the hyper-partison sites used twice as many swear words overall. Not only did hyper-partisan subreddits use more swear words, they also tended to involve stronger ones (like fuck vs. hell) – again indicating more intense feelings toward issues or people.

 

The great divide

Not only does our degree of partisanship come out in terms of how we communicate online, but research shows that partisanship in politicians’ speech has greatly increased over the last century.

By partisan talk, I am referring to the types of short catchphrases and party talking points that have become increasingly recognized as call signs of particular political ideologies. For example, the term “climate crises” is frequently used by Democrats and “secure borders” is often mentioned by Republicans.

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In a study that used machine learning to examine common refrains like these in Congressional speeches from 1872 to 2016, researchers discovered that the computer algorithm could identify the political affiliation of the speaker with just a minute of speech. More importantly, though, up until 1994, the rate of identification was only about 55%. By 2009, it had skyrocketed to 83% party-affiliation accuracy—all based on processing one-minute samples of speech.

 

The researchers suggest this increase is tied to more sophisticated marketing and messaging around the “contract with America” that Republicans began strategically adopting in the mid 1990s. Seeing its effectiveness, Democrats soon also started hammering away at coordinated and consistent political messaging. This type of recurring, coordinated phraseology is now standard in politics, spread in large part by partisan news platforms and social media sties.

According to the authors of the study, “Democrats and Republicans now speak different languages to a far greater degree than ever before.” The big-picture result? Increased partisanship not just for politicians but for everyone—feeding right back into what is driving the partisan linguistic style evidenced on reddit.

 

Luckily, not all topics appeared to follow this track of becoming increasingly partisan as of late. While “alcohol” was found to be the subject of great political partisanship during the Prohibition era, now, at least, Democrats and Republicans are more willing to discuss their differences over a drink.

 

References

Gentzkow, M., Shapiro, J.M. and Taddy, M. (2019), Measuring Group Differences in High-Dimensional Choices: Method and Application to Congressional Speech. Econometrica, 87: 1307-1340.

Nguyen, A., Roberts, T., Anand, P., & Fox Tree, J. E. (2022). Look, Dude: How hyperpartisan and non-hyperpartisan speech differ in online commentary. Discourse & Society, 33(3), 371-390.

About the Author

Valerie Fridland, Ph.D., is a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno, and the author of Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good and Bad English.