From fellow "maverick" to "hockey mom", the image of the Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been skillfully crafted ever since her pick by John McCain at the end of August.

As the election campaign nears its end, Palin has succeeded in becoming a firm reference point in the American political landscape, whether it be as the energizer of the Republican base, the subject of political commentary, or as a recurring character in comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live.

With the McCain campaign seemingly unable to compete with the media omnipresence of Barack Obama, Palin's star quality has recently provoked wide speculations as to her political future and a potential candidacy in 2010 on top of the Republican ticket.

Every observer would agree that Palin's political rhetoric, presented as down-to-earth and folksy, has been one of the main characteristics propelling her rise to nationwide (and even global) popularity.

This double-feature therefore looks at the ways Sarah Palin used language to convey her political message and in which way this differs from her Republican running mate, John McCain.

It is based on a complete analysis of Sarah Palin's speeches with a particular focus on a comparison between her and John McCain's public rhetoric for the month of October.

Part 1 looks at Palin's key themes and her most often used nouns, adjectives, verbs and personal pronouns, while part 2 explores the collocations of the words McCain, Obama, hockey mom, Alaska, and god in her stump speeches.



1. Palin's Keywords

When compared to John McCain, the key themes of Sarah Palin's speeches are the praise of her running mate (man, leader), the sharp contrast to Barack Obama (we, our opponent), the stress on the Republican ticket being a team of mavericks, as well as the emphasis on her own experience as governor of Alaska and in the field of energy.

Palin's rhetoric also underlines the reform that a McCain/Palin administration would bring and likes to stress values such as freedom and independence.



2. Nouns, Adjectives, Personal Pronouns

The following is a breakdown of the nouns, adjective and pronouns Sarah Palin uses with a significantly higher frequency than her running mate:

a. Nouns

The nouns most frequently used by Palin are the ones stressing John McCain's leadership qualities (man, leader), as well as her executive experience as governor.

While pointing to the reform promise of their ticket, she especially highlights her expertise in the field of energy (energy, oil).

In contrast to John McCain, Palin also puts a particular emphasis in her rhetoric on the significance of this election for America (election, race, choice).

Furthermore, she talks statistically more often about family matters and relations in her stump speeches, using words such as baby, children, family.

Typical nouns used by Palin:

Nouns	Significance Level	Relative Frequency Factor
man	< 0.0001	4,72
energy	< 0.0001	4,07
reform	< 0.0001	4,87
governor	< 0.0001	6,55
independence	< 0.0001	8,66
opponent	< 0.0001	2,88
administration	< 0.0001	4,94
guy	< 0.0001	4,39
state	< 0.0001	2,02
leader	0,00020	3,36
nation	0,00023	2,49
race	0,00055	2,50
party	0,00056	2,38
track	0,00056	2,33
oil	0,00061	2,83
lot	0,00082	2,16
war	0,00086	2,32
audience	0,00096	1,81
kind	0,00127	2,18
choice	0,00175	2,04

b. Adjectives

Palin's most frequently used adjectives are designed to underline the readiness of her to be vice president (ready, vice, able), the beauty of America (beautiful), as well as the focus on the election date (4th) and the next administration.

Typical adjectives used by Palin:

Adjectives	Significance Level	Relative Frequency Factor
special	< 0.0001	7,13
ready	< 0.0001	4,18
beautiful	< 0.0001	21,95
vice	< 0.0001	20,00
good	< 0.0001	1,68
only	< 0.0001	3,23
high	0,00281	2,08
4th	0,00830	2,78
able	0,00888	2,30
next	0,04402	1,51

c. Personal Pronouns

In stark contrast to John McCain (whose most used personal pronouns are my, them and I), Sarah Palin most significantly used personal pronouns are our, you, ourselves and us.

Her speech is therefore, similar to Barack Obama, much more aimed toward conveying the image of collectivity and community, as well as establishing a dialogue with the American people.

Personal Pronoun	Significance Level	Relative Frequency Factor
our	< 0.0001	1,74
you	0,00026	1,19
ourselves	0,00059	23
us	0,00345	1,45

d. Verbs

In accordance with her potential task as vice president as well as her role as elected public official, Palin's most often used verb is to serve.

Although both John McCain and Sarah Palin heavily draw on action verbs, Plain displays a far wider range of verbs expressing determination (believe, want, mean) and a whole range of agility and dedication with regard to the tasks ahead (produce, shake, run, go, put, work, build).

Verbs	Significance Level	Relative Frequency Factor
serve	< 0.0001	4,28
believe	< 0.0001	2,46
look	< 0.0001	4,43
thank	< 0.0001	1,62
produce	< 0.0001	7,96
shake	< 0.0001	4,32
run	0,00012	2,32
go	0,00047	1,31
want	0,00049	1,52
bless	0,00082	2,58
put	0,00111	1,63
talk	0,00386	1,97
work	0,00481	1,65
mean	0,00861	2,62
build	0,00888	2,30
hear	0,01522	2,02

What is particularly striking in Palin's usage of verbs in comparison to John McCain, are is her expression of gratitude (thank) as well as her statistically more significant use of the religious term (bless, see also part 2 for her collocation of the word god).



3. Significant Phrases

When comparing Sarah Palin's most often used phrases to those of her Democratic counter-part Joe Biden, it becomes obvious that both of them not only try to boost their running mates and their respective teams, but also heavily rely on the rhetorical device of repetition to make their case.



Biden focuses on the failures of the past administration (the last years, with George Bush, John McCain Bush) and the concept of change for America (e.g. going to change, the American dream), while giving equal attention to the middle class (the firefighters, the teachers, the middle class), future generations (their kids), as well as health care and economic policy.

Palin also stresses the significance of family (mother of, and our daughters) and children with special needs and the economic situation (economy back on track).

In contrast to Biden, however, Palin's most often used phrases are dominated by expressions of gratitude (thank you, etc.), action and determination (We want, shake things up, ready to shake), faith (we believe in) and strong emphasis on America (American workers, American ingenuity).



4. Hedges / Gendered Language

Hedges are terms or phrases that modify the meaning of words, sentence parts or statements, to lessen their impact or emotional content (see glossary).

In linguistic research, the usage of hedges (e.g. more or less, kind of, might as well be, really, actually, etc.) has been identified as one of the characteristics of "women's language" (Lakoff 1975).

In her campaign speeches, Sarah Palin uses more than twice as much hedges as John McCain (Palin: 3.38%, McCain 1.41%), thus fulfilling the criteria of a language usage that is typically associated with women.



5. Emotionality

With regard to rhetorical staging of emotionality (based on a combined analysis of intensifiers and the use of emphatic particles, see glossary), Palin shows a higher degree of emotions in her rhetoric than John McCain (Palin: 4.35/1000 words, McCain: 4.05/1000 words).

What is striking, however, is that the highest rhetorical emotionality throughout the campaign is displayed by the Democratic campaign, with Biden having a considerable lead over Obama in this regard (Biden: 5.28/1000 words; Obama 4.48/1000 words).



6. Vocabulary

The following shows Palin and McCain's variety of words and the distribution between linguistic categories:

Linguistic Feature	Palin	McCain
Nouns	1359	1125
Adjectives	551	458
Pronouns	27	27
Adverbs	225	170
Verbs	577	532
Total	2739	2312
Average Length of Sentences	12,0	12,0

From a grammatical point of view, Sarah Palin's language is more complex than that of John McCain. She uses significantly more nouns and adjectives, and McCain also trails her with regard to the usage of adverbs and verbs.

Both Palin and McCain, however, rely on very short sentences with an average of 12 words.

Part 2