Linguists study Palin speech patterns

[dragonlady]

Three professors of linguistics at the University of Wisconsin have analyzed Sarah Palin's speech, based on her performance at the VP debate. They give a glimpse into why she talks the way she does.
(How she thinks is something else entirely.)

During the presidential campaign, almost every aspect of Palin's life, including how she talked, was dissected by everyone from curious voters to political pundits. Many noted that for someone who grew up in Alaska, she talked a lot like she had been raised in Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota.

The UW researchers said people living in Alaska's Matanuska and Susitna valleys, where Wasilla is located, are largely descendants of farmers who moved there in the 1930s from the Upper Midwest. More than 200 farm families moved to the Wasilla area in 1935 as part of a government program to start a new farming community.

They also identified some of what one professor called "screaming hallmarks of western speech."

For example, Palin pronounces the word "feel" like "fill" and "peel" like "pill." They found that she dropped the -ing at the end of words nearly 12% of the time, said the words "darn" and "heck" two times each, referred to her grandmother as "gramma" and offered a "shout out" to a third-grade class in Alaska.

That type of informal speech is jarring to listeners attuned to hearing formal political talk and led many to question whether Palin was doing it for effect, Purnell said.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/70162272.html

[FSogol]

1. What about the "and, also?"

:shrug:

[Myrina]

2. She totally reminds me of a Yooper-Canadian hybrid ...

... ya hey, an'so?

[amandabeech]

35. Youbetcha! n/t

[damntexdem]

3. She needs psychiatrists to study her speech patterns.

I wonder what drugs they would prescribe. ;-)

[medeak]

4. what about the non-ending sentences

that go on and on jumping from one topic to another. Everytime I hear he speak I think of what it would look like as a transcript

[HipChick]

5. She sounds different even from how she used to speak to Alaskans..before she got on the national

stage...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H-26MOxH34

[Confusious]

18. I lived in Alaska for 20 years

Nobody there speaks like that. 0 zip nada. My father still lives there ( 30 years ), he doesn't talk like that. My friends didn't talk like that.

She's a bullshit ignoramus. ( I know the phrase is "Bullshit artist" but she doesn't rise to the level )

[TexasProgresive]

28. she speaks Alaskan like B*sh speaks Texan

Both are fake. I have lived in Texas nearly my whole life and nobody talks like him.

[Cetacea]

6. Former meth head.

[ixion]

7. her pattern seems to be to combine hackneyed phrases together in various combinations

that normally do not represent complete thoughts, or complete sentences.

[blue sky at night]

9. Ron Reagan says.......

that she told Oprah that if she could do it again...."I would just be myself...." and I would win this time. Uh...no.

[Chulanowa]

8. She always sounded like Bobby's mom crossed with Peggy Hill, to me

[RKP5637]

11. LOL

:rofl:

[3waygeek]

17. Say what?

Bobby's mom is Peggy Hill.

[Chulanowa]

32. No no. Different "Bobby"

From Howie Mandel's cartoon, "Bobby's World"

[NecklyTyler]

10. Jeff Foxworthy has the answer to this

A southern comedian, Jeff Foxworthy, defines the stereotype as a "glorious lack of sophistication". In other words, Sarah Palin is a redneck

[Confusious]

19. I've decided to start calling it bullshit ignoramus.................eom

[moondust]

12. I'd call it "Midwestern Hillbilly." n/t

[Xipe Totec]

13. Ellie Mae Clampett, without the bleach

[Lisa0825]

36. But at least Ellie Mae had a heart!

That is in great contrast to the ice bitch!

Ellie Mae was an animal rescuer, not a helicopter assassin.

[StarfarerBill]

14. All these unrecs in any Palin thread;

there must be Saraheads hunched over their computers in basements all over the country, waiting for a moment to strike a blow for Freedumb.

[NoSheep]

24. Maybe just people who are sick of reading her name over and over

that's my theory. I've never unrec'd anything...seems a bit silly.

[StarfarerBill]

27. You could be right. We'll probably never know, I guess.

[NoSheep]

29. Not knowing...a gift I'm sure of it!

before the internet, I only thought people in the town where I grew up were racist, ignorant pigs. ;)

[StarfarerBill]

30. Meaning you no ill will...

...but I wish you'd been right. ;)

Seriously, I live in Tennessee, and before have lived in Texas, North Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa...sad to say, ignorance of all kinds is in abundance everywhere I've ever resided or visited.

[NoSheep]

31. I was exaggerating a bit. Thought you'd get it.

[StarfarerBill]

40. Sorry. I tend to take things literally, I suppose.

[Are_grits_groceries]

15. What are these patterns of which they speak??? nt

[jmowreader]

16. jmowreader Analyzes Palin Speech Patterns

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has the accent of a Midwesterner, and the speech patterns of someone who experimented with mixing PCP and high-potency cannabis during her teens when her brain synapses weren't quite completely formed. We note that the subject displays delusions of grandeur and the inability to complete tasks (such as her term of office), irrational statements such as her remarkable theory the president of the United States wants to murder her Down syndrome child, and her apparent desire for her state to secede from the Union even though it's completely unable to take care of itself. All these behaviors can be directly attributed to getting wrecked on angel dust on a regular basis between the ages of 13 and 17.

[zazen]

20. anyone else read the hilarious "found poetry of Sarah Palin?"

from Huff Post John Lundberg's Sarah Palin, the Anti-Poet

Julian Gough of the UK's Prospect Magazine opined facetiously this past December that "Palin is a poet, and a fine one at that. What the philistine media take for incoherence is, in fact, the fruitful ambiguity of verse." His example of this "fruitful ambiguity" is a found poem he termed "The Relevance of Africa:"

And the relevance to me
With that issue,
As we spoke
About Africa and some
Of the countries
There that were
Kind of the people succumbing
To the dictators
And the corruption
Of some collapsed governments
On the
Continent,
The relevance
Was Alaska's.

Gough elaborated on his tongue-in-cheek theory: "A great poet needs to leave open the door between the conscious and unconscious; Sarah Palin has removed her door from its hinges. A great poet does not self-censor; Sarah Palin seems authentically innocent of what she is saying. She could be the most natural, visionary poet since William Blake." Great poets, of course, do self-censor (even the Beats), at least during the editing process.

[JNelson6563]

21. I hope those linquists were fluent in stupid.

[gratuitous]

25. I thought the body of the post was going to be

"And commit mass suicide."

[JNelson6563]

26. lol

:toast:

[Angry Dragon]

22. I already have to live with Bachmann

now don't go saying she also is from Minnesota roots. I will not have it.

[Raine]

23. How about how she goes on and on and on and on

without a breath and talks till you want to shoot yourself just to have some relief from the grating of her voice. :banghead:

[DU GrovelBot]

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[varelse]

34. She doesn't make any sense

how could they listen to her without hemorrhaging brain cells?

[Lisa0825]

37. Alan Shore...

word salad.

[amborin]

38. didn't they read analyses that claim she *deliberately* talks this way, has been coached to do so?

such as dropping the "ing" suffix, etc......

she's deliberately assuming a "folksy" down home accent, it's all contrived

[Odin2005]

39. She sounds just like people around here (Fargo).

Folks were freaking out because they were wondering were she got that accent.