Hillary Clinton: Runs like a man, talks like a girl

[James A. Landau]

On Fri 04/27/07 12:02 AM Dennis Baron <debaron at UIUC.EDU> quotes:

<quote>
Hillary Clinton: Runs like a man, talks like a girl

Hillary Clinton talks like a girl.  That's the conclusion of a pair
of psycholinguistic researchers who analyzed radio and television
interviews with Sen. Hillary Clinton and former president Bill
Clinton recorded in 2003 and 2004, just after each had published a
memoir.  They found that Bill speaks more than Hillary, but Hillary
uses "you know" more than Bill.  She says "so" more often, but he
uses more nonstandard forms of speech.  Bill addresses his
interviewers as "you," while Hillary calls them by their names.  Bill
laughs at his own comments; Hillary laughs in response to what
interviewers say.  In sum, though, she laughs more than he does, at
least she did when they were on the air several years ago....
Weighing these findings, the researchers conclude, "Though Hillary
Clinton is a politician herself, she still follows, to some extent,
the historic designation of women's language as the language of the
non-powerful."

Strange to think of Hillary Clinton as non-powerful.  But stranger
still to think she talks like a girl  -- assuming, that is, that
anyone knows for sure what girls, or boys, actually talk like.

Everybody knows that men and women speak differently, and that these
differences often lead to misunderstanding.  Some people think the
differences are genetic, others argue they are socially constructed.
Unfortunately, there's no general agreement on what constitutes man-
speak, or what it really means to talk like a girl.  There is some
consensus, though, that politicos use language to win votes....

Want to know more?  Read the rest on the Web of Language:

www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage
</quote>

I see no gender-based differences.  The language deltas cited can be explained as personality differences.  Bill Clinton is the epitome of the backslapping American salesman.  Hillary Clinton is somewhat more reserved in personality.  As for "he uses more nonstandard forms of speech", don't forget that he comes from rural Arkansas and she comes from urban Illinois.



On Fri 04/27/07 12:02 AM Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU> wrote

"AP reports on Hillary Clinton's tendency of using a "Dixie drawl" when
addressing Southern and/or black audiences"

Columnist Michelle Malkin was very turned off by what she described not as Hillary Clinton's "Dixie drawl" but as "Southern-spiced-with-street twang", "her awful blackface voice",  and "black-cent".

http://www.creators.com/opinion/michelle-malkin.html?columnsName=mim

I might point out that Malkin criticized the content of Hillary Clinton's speech as well as the accent used.

As for myself, I will stay out of this controversy, as I find no lack of substantive issues on which to judge Hillary.

    - Jim Landau




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