Talk “Like a Man”: The Linguistic Styles of Hillary Clinton, 1992–2013

Abstract

Hillary Clinton is arguably the most prominent woman in American politics today. Past research suggests female politicians conform to masculine communication styles in an attempt to evade the "double bind." Clinton's long and varied career thus provides an important and useful case study for investigating how female politicians present themselves strategically. Drawing on research in political psychology, political communication, social psychology, and linguistics I examine whether Clinton talked "like a man" as she navigated a path toward political leadership by conducting a quantitative textual analysis of 567 interview transcripts and candidate debates between 1992-2013. Results on Clinton's linguistic style suggest her language grew increasingly masculine over time, as her involvement and power in politics expanded. I also consider Clinton's language in the context of her 2007-2008 presidential campaign. In 2007, Clinton's linguistic style was consistently masculine, supporting widespread accounts of Clinton's campaign strategy. Beginning in late 2007, however, Clinton's language became more feminine, reflecting a shift in the self-presentational strategies advised by her campaign staff. Throughout the 2008 campaign period, Clinton's language fluctuated dramatically from one interview to the next, reflecting a candidate-and campaign-in crisis. This study reveals hidden insight into the strategies Clinton used as she navigated through the labyrinth toward leadership. Changes in Clinton's linguistic style reflect the performance of gendered roles, expectations of political leaders, and the masculine norms of behavior that permeate political institutions.

Politeness at Work in the Clinton Email Corpus: A First Look at the Effects of Status and Gender

“…As regards Jones' (2016) claim that Clinton displayed a more masculine style during her tenure as Secretary of State, what we can say, absent comparable email datasets from other periods of Clinton's career, is that her language use appears to be conditioned primarily by her status as the head of a governmental department. While some may expect only men to occupy such roles, we see no indications of so-called 'masculine' language here.…”

Minorities in the Lead: Collectivism and Self-Personalization in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Political Campaign Videos

“…The division of these categories is based on the frameworks of Taylor and Van Dyke's [15] defining features of tactical repertoires and Gamson's [16] collective action frame. To support the analysis of these campaign videos, Bordwell and Thompson's [17] Film Art and Jones' [18] electoral candidate linguistic markers also serve as tools to analyze the data. The article is divided into four sections.…”

“…However, Ocasio-Cortez tries to negotiate the elements of masculine traits specifically in linguistic markers by using predominantly feminine ones. One way to identify the dominance of feminine linguistic markers by Ocasio-Cortez is through Jones' [18] study that provides data of linguistic markers that are used by female and male politicians. The table demonstrates that Ocasio-Cortez tends to use feminine linguistic markers rather than the masculine ones in her several campaign video on her YouTube channel.…”

“…Meanwhile, references to external objects like statistics, expert reports, and policy issues tend to rely on the use of articles (object references), prepositions (spatial and temporal hierarchies), and big words, which are similarly included in the masculine linguistic style." [18] Ocasio-Cortez's style, according to Jones' study, is still predominantly using feminine style such as using social references and personal experiences. This is apparent through her campaign video titled "Courage to Change" and "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez featured on NowThis" In the "Courage to Change" video (00:00:03-00:00:18), she uses her personal experiences as a working-class woman who is not supposed to run for office.…”

Types of Political Discourses and Their Classification

“…As for the notion of discursive strategies, for example, within the context of political discourse, when female politicians adopt a "masculine" way of talking -it may be considered a specific discursive strategy for achieving certain (political) goals (Jones, 2015). What we are dealing with here is some kind of a language game when one sex adopts the rules of the opposite sex language usage.…”