Communications of the ACM
As Election Nears, Candidate Language Gets Simpler
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found most words and grammar used in U.S. presidential candidates' speeches were typical of students in grades six through eight.
Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) researchers recently conducted a study analyzing the readability of U.S. presidential candidates' speeches and found most use words and grammar typical of students in grades six through eight.
The researchers used a readability model called REAP, which examines how often words and grammatical constructs are used at each grade level.
A historical review of their word and grammar usage suggests Republicans Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio (who has since suspended his campaign), and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders—have been using simpler language as the campaigns have progressed, with Trump tending to lag behind the others.
A comparison of this year's candidates with previous presidents found none of them match up to Abraham Lincoln, who used 11th grade grammar in his speeches, while the grammar of President George W. Bush was at a 5th grade level.
"Assessing the readability of campaign speeches is a little tricky because most measures are geared to the written word, yet text is very different from the spoken word," says CMU researcher Maxine Eskenazi. Trump and Clinton's speeches showed the greatest variation, suggesting they may work harder than the others in tailoring speeches to particular audiences, notes Eskenazi.
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