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Liberals lecture, conservatives communicate: Analyzing complexity and ideology in 381,609 political speeches.

ABSTRACT: There is some evidence that liberal politicians use more complex language than conservative politicians. This evidence, however, is based on a specific set of speeches of US members of Congress and UK members of Parliament. This raises the question whether the relationship between ideology and linguistic complexity is a more general phenomenon or specific to this small group of politicians. To address this question, this paper analyzes 381,609 speeches given by politicians from five parliaments, by twelve European prime ministers, as well as speeches from party congresses over time and across countries. Our results replicate and generalize earlier findings: speakers from culturally liberal parties use more complex language than speakers from culturally conservative parties. Economic left-right differences, on the other hand, are not systematically linked to linguistic complexity.

SUBMITTER: Schoonvelde M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6364865 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Liberals lecture, conservatives communicate: Analyzing complexity and ideology in 381,609 political speeches.

Schoonvelde Martijn M Brosius Anna A Schumacher Gijs G Bakker Bert N BN

PloS one 20190206 2

There is some evidence that liberal politicians use more complex language than conservative politicians. This evidence, however, is based on a specific set of speeches of US members of Congress and UK members of Parliament. This raises the question whether the relationship between ideology and linguistic complexity is a more general phenomenon or specific to this small group of politicians. To address this question, this paper analyzes 381,609 speeches given by politicians from five parliaments, ...[more]

PMID: 30726227

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Project description:ObjectiveThe impact of cognitive function and decline on political ideology is unknown. We studied the relationship between cognition and both political orientation and political policy choices in a population of older persons.DesignLongitudinal investigation.SettingA retirement community and its surroundings in Southern California.Participants151 members of a longitudinal investigation of aging and dementia in the oldest-old (the 90+ Study), mean age 95 years.MeasurementsParticipants self-reported their political ideology (7-point scale from extremely liberal to extremely conservative) and policy preferences for federal spending on public schooling, aid to the poor, and protecting the environment, as well as on preferences on immigration rates, death penalty, and university admission. The same political survey was mailed to participants twice: at time one and 6-months later. Cognitive function based on neurological examination and cognitive testing was classified as normal (55%), cognitive impairment/not dementia (CIND) (33%), or dementia (12%). We calculated rank correlations between ideology and policy choices, stratified by cognitive status, and agreement between Surveys 1 and 2.ResultsPolitical ideology/orientation was highly consistent over a six-month period (84% agreement) among the 122 who returned the second survey, with no significant relationship to cognitive status. Among cognitively impaired (CIND and dementia), however, there was significant loss of consistency between an individual's political orientation and their policy choices. Level of political engagement was high for participants, with more than 90% voting in the 2016 presidential election.ConclusionIn this population of older persons, political identification on the liberal-conservative spectrum was resilient despite cognitive decline, but its meaning and function were changed. For the cognitively impaired it remained a self-defining label, but no longer operated as a higher order framework for orienting specific policy preferences. There appeared to be loss of coherence between the political orientation and political policy choices of cognitively impaired individuals. Given the high level of political engagement of these individuals, these results have substantial public policy implications.

Dataset Information

Liberals lecture, conservatives communicate: Analyzing complexity and ideology in 381,609 political speeches.

Publications

Liberals lecture, conservatives communicate: Analyzing complexity and ideology in 381,609 political speeches.

Similar Datasets

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