Words don't lie: semantic mapping of presidential candidates shows what's really on their minds

[Chris Allen Thomas]

The words we use clearly indicate what some of the topics are on our minds, but this email doesn't do that. This email gives the topic and asks us to believe that there is some sort of analysis of the candidates' belief systems. This email also subtly suggests that we believe some things about the quality of the candidates mentioned just by virtue of their most common words that night. Honestly, the fact that McCain said Obama's name most frequently and the fact that Obama said "going" most frequently, says what, precisely?

My favorite is the following:

McCain mentioned no big dollar amounts, confirming his belief that if you have to ask what something costs, then you can't afford it.

How does this lack to say something confirm his beliefs?

Now, I believe that semantic clouds and neural networks will help us a great deal in the future to deconstruct language and learn a great deal about how people formulate the language that frames ideas. But this bit of analysis--it is just propaganda cloaked in a bit of academic theory. We have enough propaganda in linguistics.
Chris Allen Thomas

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Baron" <debaron at illinois.edu>
To: "Baron Dennis" <debaron at illinois.edu>, "language language policy" <lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>, "ads ads" <ads-l at listserv.uga.edu>, "wpa" <wpa-l at asu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2008 1:56:45 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Words don't lie: semantic mapping of presidential candidates shows what's really on their minds

There's a new post on the  Web of Language:  


Words don't lie: semantic mapping of presidential candidates shows what's really on their minds 


With the global economy imploding and the United States mired in two wars of attrition, the presidential candidates met for their first debate Sept. 26 at the University of Mississippi. By counting their words we can create a semantic map for each candidate, a map which shows just how skillfully Sens. McCain and Obama skirted these pressing issues. 


The most frequent words out of John McCain's mouth were "Senator Obama," which he said a total of 45 times according to the  Washington Post's  tag cloud analysis . Sen. Obama's favorite word was "going" (55 occurrences; the  Post  didn't count words like  the  and  is,  focusing instead on more substantive substantives and more verbal verbs). 


According to MSNBC,  Obama said  Al Qaida  about twice as often as McCain, but not enough to stir the needle on the  Post's  tag cloud counter, and while Obama said  billion  some 22 times, McCain mentioned no big dollar amounts, confirming his belief that if you have to ask what something costs, then you can't afford it. Neither candidate mentioned  subprime mortgage.  They can afford not mentioning it, because their homes are paid for.   




Of course partisan readers will bend even a tag cloud to fit their preconceived notions of what was said. For example, Democratic pundits concluded that the frequency of  going  showed Obama to be a man of action, while McCain's rehearsal of his opponent's name indicated that the aging senator had to constantly remind himself who he was talking to. But Republicans found just the opposite, spinning McCain as a pragmatist rooted firmly in the present while Obama was off wool gathering about the future. 

McCain said  Senator Obama  more often than he said  Iraq  (17 times),  Afghanistan  (11), and  troops (also 11). And McCain, who just turned 72 this week, found more ways to say, "I'm really an old guy" than his handlers might have liked. On the other hand, Obama said  years  21 times, a thinly-veiled attempt to convince voters that he is actually old enough to be president . . . . 




read the rest of this post on  the Web of Language 







____________________ 

Dennis Baron 
Professor of English and Linguistics 
Department of English                       
University of Illinois   
608 S. Wright St. 
Urbana, IL 61801                                                


office: 217-244-0568 
fax: 217-333-4321 


http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron 


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-- 
PhD Candidate
Educational Linguistics
Graduate School of Education
University of Pennsylvania