Georgetown Linguist Finds Trump’s Way of Speaking Key to His Success
“Great people.” “Believe me.” “Not good.”
Liberals often mock Trump’s simple and direct speaking style but a linguist at Georgetown suggests this is one of his assets.
From the Washington Post:
This linguist studied the way Trump speaks for two years. Here’s what she found.
“Great people.” “Believe me.” “Not good.”
These two-word expressions are among some of the staples of the 45th president of the United States’ vocabulary. Although President Trump’s political career is just a few years old, he has already become associated with several simple phrases — “make America great again,” “build the wall” — and even single words — “win,” “sad,” “great.”
Trump is a “unique” politician because he doesn’t speak like one, according to Jennifer Sclafani, an associate teaching professor in Georgetown University’s Department of Linguistics.
“He is interesting to me linguistically because he speaks like everybody else,” said Sclafani, who has studied Trump’s language for the past two years. “And we’re not used to hearing that from a president. We’re used to hearing somebody speak who sounds much more educated, much smarter, much more refined than your everyday American.”
During a February news conference, Trump seemed to give credit to the power of his words for helping him become president.
“That’s how I won,” Trump told reporters gathered at the White House. “I won with news conference and probably speeches. I certainly didn’t win by people listening to you people, that’s for sure.”
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Comments
Simple, straightforward, concise.
He communicates, not obfuscates.
I wonder what she’d discover if she studied how Obama lied, um, errr, ahhh, ummmm, talked during his time in office.
They’re still trying to pretend that the Trump phenomenon is mere form over substance. But it’s far more about what he says than how he says it.
If you mean what you say, then you’re best served by saying what you mean. There’s no need to dress it up.
Apparently we’re all linguists. Every single one of us knew this already simply by listening to half a campaign speech.