Linguists explain why Sarah Palin has such an emotional connection with her audience
When you think of Sarah Palin's speech, a few features tend to stand out. Her unique accent, for example, or her folksy expressions like "Joe Six-Pack" and "hockey mom."
The former Alaska governor reemerged last week with a one-of-a-kind speechendorsing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, drawing renewed attention to her curious rhetorical style.
But researchers have identified one aspect of Palin's speech that is particularly distinctive. And though it probably goes unnoticed by most listeners, it may be the most powerful speaking technique in her arsenal.
Take these quotes from Palin's speech endorsing Trump:
"It’s why we see these lousy trade deals that gut our industry for special interests elsewhere.""Now they’re concerned aboutthis ideological purity?""They’ve been wearing this political correctness kind of like a suicide vest.”"I’m going to tell you about that libertarian streak in him."
And this one from a campaign rally the next day, when Palin addressed her son's arrest:
"I can certainly relate with other families who kind of feel these ramifications of some PTSD."
In each of these quotes, Palin is using a particular set of words: "this," "that," "these," and "those." Linguists call these demonstratives, or "pointing words."
Take, for example, when Palin said 2008 GOP nominee John McCain "sounded that warning bell" in 2008. It was as if she were pointing to something both she and her audience were familiar with.
"We all know the warning bell she's talking about, right?" wrote linguist Mark Liberman on the blog Language Log. "That one over there, always in the back of our shared experience."
Linguists Eric Acton and Christopher Potts also argued in their 2014 study that Palin was using demonstratives as a way to establish common ground with her audience, as if the two parties have some sort of "private shared knowledge" to draw upon.
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