The Grammar Of Donald Trump's Speeches Falls Below 6th Grade Level
The Grammar Of Donald Trump's Speeches Falls Below 6th Grade Level
In a recent study by Carnegie-Mellon University analyzing the speeches of the 2016 candidates and a few presidents past, the results showed that Trump used the simplest language and grammar of all five candidates studied. Find out more here!
In a recent study by Carnegie-Mellon University analyzing the speeches of the 2016 candidates and a few presidents past, the results showed that Trump used the simplest language and grammar of all five candidates studied. Find out more here!
A recent paper released by Carnegie-Mellon University, "A Readability Analysis of Campaign Speeches From the 2016 US Presidential Campaign," has studied the language used by 2016's presidential candidates and attempted to place their grammar and vocabulary at the appropriate grade level. Current president Donald Trump was shown to use language at the lowest grade levels compared to other candidates.
While Bernie Sanders consistently used vocabulary above the 10th grade level, Trump averaged out around 7th grade. While Marco Rubio consistently used grammar that was near 8th grade level, Trump's grammar fell below that of a 6th grade student.
The study also showed that while Ted Cruz showed the least variation in his vocabulary used, Hillary Clinton showed the most.
However, these speeches' grammar and vocabulary are not necessarily an indicator of the intelligence of a candidate. George Washington was not by any means renowned for his public speaking abilities, and yet he is widely considered to be a good first president and an intelligent man. Additionally, public speaking sometimes calls for less structured grammar and for more immediately digestible vocabulary. The study even admitted that analyzing documents written to be spoken and documents written to be read are two very different things...
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. When we speak, we usually use less structured language with shorter sentences.
Maxine Eskenazi, Carnegie-Mellon Language Technologies Institute
Washington Post, March 18, 2016
But now, what we want to know is...
Do you think Donald Trump should have raised his level of grammar and vocabulary for his speeches?
Do you think Donald Trump should have raised his level of grammar and vocabulary for his speeches?
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