Populist linguistic tone in recent U.S. presidential campaign discourse: a DICTION analysis

This study analyzed the tone of public campaign remarks of right- and left-wing populist (Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, respectively) and right and left-wing non-populist (Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton, respectively) U.S. presidential candidates using DICTION 7.0. Findings suggest that populist...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCommunication research reports Vol. 37; no. 1-2; pp. 11 - 21
Main Author Stewart, Craig O.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 14.03.2020
Subjects
computational text analysis
political communication
populism
tone
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Summary:This study analyzed the tone of public campaign remarks of right- and left-wing populist (Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, respectively) and right and left-wing non-populist (Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton, respectively) U.S. presidential candidates using DICTION 7.0. Findings suggest that populists tended to use a linguistic tone that is high in pessimism, group abstractness, and exclusion. Pessimism and group abstractness were positively associated with immigration language in right-wing populist speech. Commonality and "we-ness" were positively associated with populist language in left-wing populist speech.
ISSN:0882-4096
1746-4099
DOI:10.1080/08824096.2020.1736541