A READABILITY ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT CLINTON'S INAUGURAL ADRESSES

Transcription

1 / A READABILITY ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT CLINTON'S INAUGURAL ADRESSES By Eric C. Talaska AN INDEPENDENT RESEARCH PAPER Department of Communication Professor Steve Smith University of Arkansas Hay I 1994

2 Inaugural addresses have many purposes in politics. Inaugural addresses are vital to the new administrations because a great or empty speech can alter the perceptions of the entire new administration (Smith, 1990). Because each address is given at different dates within different political environments, each will have noticeable readability differences. How readable an address is determines how the address messages will be interpreted by "the average person." As Frey (1992) concluded, "the meaning of a text can be inferred by determining what the producer of the text probably intended and/or by learning how receivers, either naive or expert, interpreted the text" (p. 161). This study examines the readability differences between William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton's first governorial and presidential inaugural addresses, located in appendices A and B. Different readability methods are discussed. Readability of any document is a sensitive subject. Today's technology does not allow an opportunity to assess the readability of any document as accurately as possible. Readability ultimately determines the grade level of documents. The most popular way of doing this is to enter the text into a Microsoft Word program. Then a grammar check is necessary to get the readability statistics that are presented in Table 1. The Gunning Fog index formula is not available on the program at this time. The formula for this would be:

3 2.4(sl+swl). In this grade level formula, "sl" equals the average number of words per sentence and "swi" equals the number of words with three syllables or more per 100 words. The formula for the Flesch Reading Ease score is: R.E. = wi sl. In this grade level formula, "R.E." equals the reading ease score, "wi" equals the number syllables per 100 words and "sl" is the same as above. The formula for the Flesch-Kincaid is: G.L. = (.39 sl sw) In this grade level formula, "sw" equals the average number of syllables per word, "sl" is the same as above, and "G.L." equals grade level. The three formulas above were described in detail because I cannot see how someone could look at Table 1 and assume that the results are all that is needed to understand them. It is like accounting where the reader of the results must understand how the results were obtained before he or she can understand them. According to Microsoft, standard writing averages approximately 17 words per sentence and 147 syllables per 100 words. As depicted in Table I, the words per sentences in the 1979 address are much higher than in the 1993 address. That is a reason for the higher grade levels in the 1979 address.

4 3 TABLE 1 Readability Statistics: Bill Clinton's First Governorial and Presidential Inaugural Addresses Counts Govern. Jan. 9, 1979 Presid. Jan. 2, 1993 Avg. Words 1264 Characters 7075 Paragraphs Sentences Averages: Sentences per Paragraph... 2 Words per Sentence Characters per Word Readability: (Standard indexes) Passive Sentences 18% Flesch Reading Ease (1974) 53.9 Flesch Grade Level % 13% Flesch-Kincaid 12.0 Gunning Fog Index (1968)... N/A Source: Microsoft Word. 8.0 N/A 10.0 N/A These statistics are not influenced by the numbering of paragraphs in the inaugural addresses located in appendices A and B. Calculations are from the same addresses in appendices A and B, but without the paragraph numbers.

5 4 Other methods of researching readability statistics are possible, but are not in reach for this project. DICTION, a computer-bases language analysis program, is one of them. Hart (1984), the inventor of the program, said it is "a procedure by which the text of a message (a poem, a letter, an editorial, a presidential speech) is converted into machine-readable characters (often by keypunching) and the computer (is) then asked to "pass over it" and to "look" for certain features of language" (p.14). Hart's program uses four major dictionaries with the titles of activity, optimism, certainty and realism. It uses seven minor dictionaries with the titles of embellishment, self-reference, variety, familiarity, human interest, complexity and symbolism. Hart says that inaugural addresses of presidents (1 assume for governors also) have the highest level of certainty and human interest meanings compared to presidential rallies, state of the union addresses, commencements and ceremonial speeches. Hart (1984) defines his dictionary of certainty as "Statements indicating resoluteness, inflexibility, and completeness. Leveling terms (all, everyone), collective nouns (bureau, department), and rigid verbs (will, shall) make for assured statements, while qualifying terms (almost, might), specificity (e.g., numerical citations), and firstperson pronouns signalled an individual's refusal to speak ex cathedra" (p.16). Hart defines his dictionary of human interest as "An

6 5 adaptation of Rudolph Flesch's notion that multiple reference to human beings gives discourse a lively, downhome quality. Includes such words as you, me, father, themselves" (p.17). As indicated in the introduction, inaugural addresses have many different purposes. They are epideictic because they are designed for a rhetorical effect and because they affirm or praise the shared principles that will guide the upcoming administration, ask the audience to "gaze upon" traditional values and employ an elegant, literary language. (Campell, Kohry & Jamison, 1985). The main purposes of the addresses are to develop the future of the elected official and to reconstitute the people (constituents) (Smith, 1990). Stephen L. Hupp, author of The Inaugural Addresses of 20th- Century American Presidents (a political communication permanent paper, 1993), said in summary that American presidents try to shape public opinion and encourage Congressional action on the office holder's legislative agenda. These purposes, as in Clinton's addresses, directly influence readability because the style is dictated by the purpose. An important distinction between the 1979 and 1993 addresses is that the 1979 speech addresses state constituencies and the 1993 speech addresses national constituencies. Here, again, style is affected by who the addresses are purposely supposed to influence. Another, and perhaps most important, influence on

7 6 readability and style of Clinton's addresses are whether or not speech writers are involved. As Smith (1990) stated "especially when speech writers are involved, the persona may not match what you know of the speaker" (p. 248). The 1979 address probably did not have a speech writer involved, but the 1993 address probably did. In 1979, Bill discarded his first draft of which he had been writing for four or five days. "It just wasn't corning out right, I wasn't saying what I wanted to say in the way I wanted to say it," he said. Immediately, he began from scratch and overhauled it. "I was ginning, so I kept working, until I just got too tired," he said (Simmons, 1979). The 1979 address was probably more sincere than the 1993 address because if a speech writer is involved, the speech is just not completely honest. His 1979 address has some emotional appeal to it because of the above story, but how do we know if Bill said what he meant in 1993 if somebody else helped him write it (or wrote it for him)? The 1979 address was delivered to hundreds of shivering onlookers clustered on the Capital steps in sub-freezing weather (Dean, 1979). The 1993 address was conducted in much more comfortable weather. The audience's attitudes towards weather surely influenced the way they interpreted the addresses. Need I say that the audience of the 1979 address interpreted the messages more negatively? One interesting aspect of the typical inaugural address

8 7 is the religious tone of some parts. What does religion have to do with politics? My interpretation of most politicians is that they shade the truth of what they say. Let's face it, a completely honest politician would not make it to the top. As Adlai Stevenson (1956) said, "the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning." Both of the addresses analyzed in this essay contain religious rhetoric. It is interesting to figure out why that is so when only 1/5 of all white adult Americans identify themselves as evangelicals. Political and religious rhetoric has been tied together so closely, that the importance of religion as a mediator of political realities is hard to ignore (Hart, 1977). The word God, as it appears in both addresses, is a paradigm case. It has one overtone for true believers, another for agnostics, and another for strident atheists (Kahane, 1992). The point here is that the inaugural address audience members differ drastically in religious beliefs. Even though each member of the audience has his or her own grade level of text comprehension, he or she has religious beliefs that cannot be measured on a grade level scale. A young person at the third grade level may interpret "God bless you all" the same way or differently as a twelfth grader. An important point here is that religious rhetoric has a special meaning for different people as it is used in Clinton's addresses.

9 8 Other basic, but important re-occurring words throughout Clinton's addresses are "I", "but" and "and." Readability suffers by beginning sentences with "but" and "and" because it makes it difficult to distinguish thoughts and sentences from each other. That happens in the 1993 address, but "but" is used to begin sentences in the 1979 address and not "and." Now that you're confused, refer back to the human interest dictionary in DICTION. The word "I" is really a selfish word that opposes human interest. It falls closer in the sub-dictionary of Rigidity, a part of the certainty dictionary. The reader or listener is forced to maintain the belief that Clinton is the writer of the speech, even though he may not be. A highlight of the 1993 inaugural is a poem written and read by Maya Angelou, a 64 year-old that is the first poet to read at a presidential inauguration since Robert Frost read at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in The text of her poem appears in appendix C. The readability statistics of that poem would probably be misrepresentative because of the poem's style. In the appendix, a box indicates the part of the poem that has the most emphasis in the inauguration. The hourlong ceremony also includes songs by soprano Marylyn Horne. A readability check on a song is surely impractical. Evidently, the 1979 address only had some music sung by Bill's brother and no poems are read.

10 : 9 In reference to Table 1, it is conclusive to say that Mr. Clinton's 1979 address is more difficult to comprehend when compared to his 1993 address. Grade levels are consistent within 4/10 of a grade level. For example, the Flesch Grade Level and the Flesch-Kincaid of the 1993 address has the largest inconsistency of just 4/10 of a grade level. Although the 1993 address is the longest, it is easier to comprehend, according to the Microsoft algarhythms (or formulas). These results are undesirable because it shows that either Mr. Clinton unintentionally wrote the 1979 address at about the 12th grade level and the 1993 address at about the 8th grade level or that Americans today are dumber than Arkansans in That is a subjective conclusion to draw because proof is not available. Only President clinton and God know the whole truth.

11 REFERENCE LIST Angelou, M. (1993, January 23). On the pulse of morning. In congressional Quarterly, (p. 166). Campell, K. Kohry, & K.H. Jamison (1985 Spring). Inaugurating the presidency. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 12, Clinton, W.J. (1988). Reprinted inaugural address. In M.E. DeBoer, Dreams of power and the power of dreams (pp ). Fayetteville, AR: university of Arkansas Press. Clinton, W.J. (1993, January 23). Reuter transcript of President Clinton's inaugural address. congressional Quarterly, pp Dean, J. (1979, January 10). Clinton: We must not squander opportunity. Arkansas Democrat, p. 1A. Frey (1992). Interpreting communication research. Old Tappan, NJ: Printice-Hall. Hart, R.P. (1977). The political pulpit. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Hart, R.P. (1992). Verbal style and the presidency. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, Inc. Kahane, H. (1992). Logic and contemporary rhetoric. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Simmons, B. (-1979, January 10). Just coffee starts Clinton's big day. Arkansas Democrat, p. lob. Smith, C.A. (1990). Political communication. Orlando, FL: Jovanovich.