In the News

Reprinted with permission from Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal

Debates Lowering Language Level

October 11, 2000 - There are fewer and fewer big words being used in presidential debates, according to a report prepared for a Danville-based Internet language portal.

"The results of our analysis indicate that the grade level of the language of political debates, from the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 to current series of presidential debates, has declined from a 12th grade level to a high 7th-grade reading level," says Paul Payack, president and CEO of yourDictionary.com.

"The research ... shows that the decline of political rhetoric since the advent of televised debates in 1960 is particularly dramatic."

Researchers performed a detailed analysis of the current series of Presidential debates and the major-party convention acceptance speeches for patterns of word usage choices, grade reading-level appropriateness, and the use of such grammatical constructions as passive voice.

YDC applied the well-regarded Flesch-Kincaid Reading Scale to analyze the length of words and sentences, the number of paragraphs, and other parameters of language to gauge its complexity.

In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Stephen Douglas' seven speeches averaged a 12th-grade level [11.9] while Lincoln's averaged 11.2 measured in current terms. The difference is explained by the fact that, although both used about the same number of words, Lincoln broke his speech down into shorter paragraphs, a stylistic choice probably intended to make his points easier to understand, according to Payack.

Washington's Farewell Address also came in at a 12th grade reading level. President Franklin Roosevelt's declaration of war in December 1941 maintained the standard of his predecessors at a grade-level of 11.5.

The first nationally televised debates, however, marked the beginning of the downtrend. John Kennedy's readability grade level was 9.6 while Richard Nixon's was 9.1. The general consensus is that Kennedy "won" the debates on points of style and his command of the new medium.

Presidents Carter and Ford are to be credited for momentarily stemming the decline, says Payack. In the Ford-Carter debates, President Carter maintained a 10.4 level and President Ford's reached 11th-grade level. In the Carter-Reagan debate, the level of Carter's language reached that of the 12th grade while Reagan's achieved a respectable 10.7. But since then, the grade-level of presidential debates has returned to decline.

In the Reagan-Mondale debates of 1984, Reagan's arguments averaged a grade level of 9.75, down a grade from his debate with Carter. Mondale's sunk even farther to 8.7.

The linguistic level of presidential debates eroded further during the Dukakis-Bush debates of 1988. Dukakis' readability level averaged 8.85 while Bush's averaged that of the 6.7 grade. But this was not the bottom.

In the Bush-Clinton-Perot debates of 1992, Bush's readability level 6.5, Clinton's 8.5, and Ross Perot's was 6.3, according to the study by yourDictionary.com.

The Clinton-Dole debates in 1996 remained at that level, with Clinton scoring 8.3 on the Flesch-Kincaid test and Dole, 6.3.

The first Bush-Gore debate of 2000 saw Gore's readability score on the Flesch-Kincaid scale was 8.4, identical with Clinton's average over his two debates, while Bush scored 7.1 -- actually half a grade-level higher than his father in the Bush-Clinton-Perot debates of 1992.

These results are significantly lower than last week's Vice Presidential Debate, where both candidates scored the highest ratings since the Carter-Reagan debates of 1980. Joe Lieberman came in at 9.9 and Dick Cheney, 9.1.

©2001 Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal