The Readability and Simplicity of Donald Trump’s Language
Orly Kayam
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Orly Kayam. Published on Political Studies Review (OnlineFirst), 1-16 © The Author(s), 2017
Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. DOI: 10.1177/1478929917706844
Abstract
The purpose of the current study is to identify the readability and simplicity of Donald J. Trump’s
speech in his media interviews and debates during the 2016 U.S. presidential primary campaign.
Ten interviews and debates broadcast on different television networks were analyzed using three of
the most commonly used readability formulas: Flesch-Kincaid, SMOG and Gunning-Fog. The
analysis revealed that a fourth- to fifth-grade level of education (9-11 year-olds) is required to
understand Trump’s language. Ten additional interviews and debates of other candidates in the
presidential election of 2016, from both the Republican and the Democratic parties, were analyzed,
using the same readability formulas, in order to shed additional light on Trump’s results. This
analysis showed that the average score of all the other candidates was at a ninth-grade level (14-15
year-olds). Furthermore, the study reveals that Trump’s sentences and words were significantly
shorter and less complex than those of any other candidate. This study suggests that Trump uses
low readability and simplicity of language as a rhetorical strategy to gain popularity, in accordance
with the trend of anti-intellectualism.
Keywords
politics, rhetoric, language, Donald Trump, readability, anti-intellectualism
The Readability and Simplicity of Donald Trump’s Language
1. Introduction
On June 16, 2015 Donald J. Trump, who until then was “only” a successful businessman and
television celebrity, announced his candidacy for president of the United States. Less than a month
later and despite the lack of support of many key Republicans (Gibbons-Neff, 2016), including
former presidential candidates Mitt Romney and John McCain (Burns & Barbaro, 2016), and
alongside countless articles and unfavorable coverage in the press and media (e.g. Kristof, 2016;
Feldenkirchen, Medick, & Stark, 2016; Abramson, 2016), Trump has managed to trounce his fellow
candidates, and after they dropped out of the primaries he remained the only presidential candidate
of the Republican Party.
In November 2016, against the polls, projections and estimations, Trump was elected
President of the United States. In less than a year and a half and with no previous political
experience, he did what many considered “the impossible” - he turned from an amusing anecdote
and the most discussed and controversial phenomenon in modern politics, into the leader of the
most powerful country in the world.
In many ways Trump represents an exceptional pattern that differentiates him from the
typical American politician. According to Street (2004), the rise of the celebrity politician has seen
the displacement of traditional political skills (e.g. bargaining, compromise) and their replacement
by those of media management and fundraising. “Politicians become stars, politics becomes a series
of spectacles, and the citizens become spectators” (Street, 2004, p. 441).
While the media has frequently covered Trump’s language and style (e.g. Denby, 2015;
Ross, 2015), there has not been sufficient academic research analyzing Trump’s rhetoric (see,
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however, Jones, 2016). Research on the language and rhetoric of present and former U.S. presidents
has been conducted, for example, by Degani (2015) and Kayam (2013) on President Barack Obama,
and in Lim’s book The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from
George Washington to George W. Bush (2008). Lim’s corpus includes an analysis of the reading
ease of all the American presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush, and shows a trend
towards language simplicity and anti-intellectualism since 1789. According to Lim (2008), while
most eighteenth and nineteenth century presidents spoke at a university/college graduate level,
throughout the twentieth century the average readability level of presidential speech declined to an
eighth-grade level (13-14 year-olds), and the average sentence length dropped from an average of
50 words per sentence in the 1780s to less than 20 in the 1980s.
In October 2015, the Boston Globe analyzed the candidacy announcement speeches of
candidates from both Republican and Democratic parties using the Flesch-Kincaid formula, and
concluded that Trump’s speech scored the lowest grade level among all the other candidates (4.1
grade level; 9-10 year-olds), while candidates Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders scored significantly
higher (8.9 and 10.1, respectively; 14-15 year-olds and 15-16 year-olds). According to DuBay
(2004), the National Adult Literacy Study (Doak et al., 1996; Weiss & Coyne, 1997) stated that the
average adult in the U.S. reads at the seventh-grade level (12-13 year-olds). Therefore, it is
reasonable to assume that using language that is understood at lower grade levels will appeal to
wider audiences. Eric Ostermeier, who has tested various candidates since 2009, comments “I
haven’t seen a fourth-grade one before”, and adds “but if he was speaking more like politicians,
would he be doing as well in the polls? I don’t think so” (in Viser, 2015, para. 23).
The fact that Trump speaks at a readability level that is lower than the level of the average
adult in the U.S. means that he is understood by almost every American voter. In this way Trump
appeals to wider audiences. However, the fact that he speaks in simple colloquial language does not
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mean that this is what necessarily brought Trump more supporters.1 In other words, we do not argue
that people with low readability levels are more likely to support a candidate that speaks at a similar
level, or that people with high readability levels are likely to reject candidates with lower readability
levels. This may reveal a certain tendency, but it needs to be explored by systematic research. Exit
polls that were released after the 2016 U.S elections, clearly show this tendency. In fact, one of the
widest gaps in the 2016 elections emerged between voters with and without a college degree.
According to the exit poll conducted by Edison Research for the National Election Pool, and
reported on CNN on election day - November 9th, 20162, college graduates supported Clinton by a
9-point margin (52%-43%), while those without a college degree backed Trump 52%-44%. As to
white voters without a college degree, 67% supported Trump, while only 28% backed Clinton.
Even among women, 62% of white non-college educated supported Trump, while only 34%
supported Hillary. As Cody Cain wrote in Salon.com just a week before the election, “Trump
‘dumbs down’ his messages in order to appeal to low-information voters, or, as Trump calls them,
the ‘poorly educated’” (para. 3). Cain names Trump’s statements as “shockingly simplistic” (para.
9) that “sound wonderful to a fourth-grader” (Cain, 2016).
In other words, it is possible that voters with low readability levels support Trump because
he speaks at their level, but it is not necessarily so. However, what is relevant to the current research
is that Trump’s low readability level and his use of simple language are in accordance with the
trend of anti-intellectualism. People may support this trend regardless of their readability levels or
years of education. Not only is it a rejection of intellect and those who are supposed to represent
and possess knowledge, but more specifically in politics, it is a rejection of the conventional
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For the complete results of the CNN Exit Polls see: http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/exitpolls/national/president.
politician and the search for something different ̶ a politician that says what he or she really thinks,
without conforming to the rules of political correctness.
According to Colvin (2016), “Trump is completely unlike all other candidates, as he is far
more relevant because he's real - he talks naturally, not like a politician, and he says out loud what a
segment of voters is thinking” (Colvin, 2016, para. 2). Swaim (2015) adds: “to get at what makes
Trump’s language different, take a look at the shape of his sentences. They don't work the way
modern political rhetoric does - they work the way punchlines work: short (sometimes very short)
with the most important words at the end” (Swaim, 2015, para. 5). Furthermore, Swaim (2015)
claims that “for people who’ve grown weary of politicians using vague and convoluted language to
lull or impress their listeners, to preserve their options and to avoid criticism, Trump sounds
refreshingly clear and forthright” (Swaim, 2015, para. 13).
Simplicity and brevity are the first two rules of Frank Luntz’s “Ten Rules of Effective
Language”: use small words and use short sentences (Luntz, 2007). According to Luntz, who
worked for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani from 1993 through 2001, and witnessed the
collapse of his 2008 presidential campaign, a candidate should avoid words that might force
someone to reach for the dictionary. Luntz suggests that “the most memorable political language is
rarely longer than a sentence” (Lunz, 2007, p. 7).
The simplicity and readability of Trump’s language will be the focus of the current study,
which is the first of two complementary studies (the second article addresses Trump’s anti-political
rhetoric). The purpose of this study is to analyze, from a linguistic perspective, Trump’s
phenomenal success in becoming the nominee of the Republican Party and the President-elect in
less than a year and a half. The study focuses on Trump’s language readability and other aspects of
linguistic simplicity, such as the use of complex (polysyllabic) words and sentence length, and
compares these findings with those of other candidates from both parties.
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Although the study does not take the political context into account, its findings and
consequences can make a significant contribution to the analysis of the rhetoric of presidential
campaigns and the research of political anti-intellectualism. As I will show, Trump’s rhetorical
strategy of using simple language with a low readability level helped pave the way to his becoming
the Republican Party nominee for President in the 2016 election, by appealing to larger audiences
and conforming to the trend of anti-intellectualism. In other words, the current study seeks to
explore the rhetorical grounds that helped Trump market himself and address a wider American
audience. In the following two subsections I will elaborate on the trend of anti-intellectualism and
the history of readability test formulas.
1.1 Anti-Intellectualism
In its political sense, anti-intellectualism is an approach that minimizes the value of knowledge,
intelligence, science, academia and intellectuals. In 1980 Isaac Asimov wrote in his essay “A Cult
of Ignorance”, published in Newsweek, that “anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding
its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means
that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’” (Asimov, 1980, p. 19).
Hofstadter (1963) defines anti-intellectualism as a “resentment and suspicion of the life of
the mind and of those who are considered to represent it; and a disposition constantly to minimize
the value of that life” (Hofstadter, 1963, p. 19). Lim (2008) adds that anti-intellectualism consists of
“disapprobation attitudes toward elitism, sophistry, effeminacy, and artifice and approbative
attitudes toward sincerity, modesty, accessibility, and democracy, making it a potent political stance
and weapon” (Lim, 2008, p. 20).
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Figure (PREVIEW)
Figure 1. Average Flesch-Kincaid grade levels of all analyzed candidates.
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Figure 3. Average words per sentence for each candidate.
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Figure 4. Average percentage of complex words (polysyllables) of each candidate.
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