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Hauptverfasser: Wang, Yu, Yu, Runxi, Wang, Zhongyuan, He, Jing
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.07874
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author Wang, Yu
Yu, Runxi
Wang, Zhongyuan
He, Jing
author_facet Wang, Yu
Yu, Runxi
Wang, Zhongyuan
He, Jing
contents This study explores the sound of populism by integrating the classic Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) features, which capture the emotional and stylistic tones of language, with a fine-tuned RoBERTa model, a state-of-the-art context-aware language model trained to detect nuanced expressions of populism. This approach allows us to uncover the auditory dimensions of political rhetoric in U.S. presidential inaugural and State of the Union addresses. We examine how four key populist dimensions (i.e., left-wing, right-wing, anti-elitism, and people-centrism) manifest in the linguistic markers of speech, drawing attention to both commonalities and distinct tonal shifts across these variants. Our findings reveal that populist rhetoric consistently features a direct, assertive ``sound" that forges a connection with ``the people'' and constructs a charismatic leadership persona. However, this sound is not simply informal but strategically calibrated. Notably, right-wing populism and people-centrism exhibit a more emotionally charged discourse, resonating with themes of identity, grievance, and crisis, in contrast to the relatively restrained emotional tones of left-wing and anti-elitist expressions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_07874
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Sound of Populism: Distinct Linguistic Features Across Populist Variants
Wang, Yu
Yu, Runxi
Wang, Zhongyuan
He, Jing
Computation and Language
This study explores the sound of populism by integrating the classic Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) features, which capture the emotional and stylistic tones of language, with a fine-tuned RoBERTa model, a state-of-the-art context-aware language model trained to detect nuanced expressions of populism. This approach allows us to uncover the auditory dimensions of political rhetoric in U.S. presidential inaugural and State of the Union addresses. We examine how four key populist dimensions (i.e., left-wing, right-wing, anti-elitism, and people-centrism) manifest in the linguistic markers of speech, drawing attention to both commonalities and distinct tonal shifts across these variants. Our findings reveal that populist rhetoric consistently features a direct, assertive ``sound" that forges a connection with ``the people'' and constructs a charismatic leadership persona. However, this sound is not simply informal but strategically calibrated. Notably, right-wing populism and people-centrism exhibit a more emotionally charged discourse, resonating with themes of identity, grievance, and crisis, in contrast to the relatively restrained emotional tones of left-wing and anti-elitist expressions.
title The Sound of Populism: Distinct Linguistic Features Across Populist Variants
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.07874