An AI dissection of Harris and Trump’s frames of mind

In their campaigns, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris project different emotions and moods. The contrast between them was particularly sharp during their debate on September 10, 2024.

One candidate made appeals to the past, used more negative words and invoked fear. The other spoke more of the future, used more positive words and appealed to voters’ sense of hope.

As a linguist, writer and professor who teaches mostly sociolinguistics – how language operates in society – I have always been fascinated by the ways in which people tend to use language in patterns. The recent Harris-Trump debate offered me an opportunity to examine how these candidates were using language to win over voters.

Looking at which approach a candidate chooses can reveal deeper truths about them. Traditionally, according to the study of rhetoric and language, politicians can appeal to reason, emotion or authority – or some combination of them – to persuade their audiences. In terms of emotion, both fear and hope can be effective at motivating voters. There’s not a right or wrong way to do it.

Linguists have developed the concept of the idiolect, an individual dialect that is like a fingerprint, different for each individual, and made out of our unique linguistic and social experiences.

People often prepare and rehearse for public speaking events. But once they are actually facing an audience, they tend to revert to what is intuitive and already second nature to them – their idiolect. A speaker is not thinking about how long their sentences are, for example.

They are thinking about the ideas they want to express. They might not realize that there are patterns to their speech and delivery, or that they return to the same