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MineralMan

(146,192 posts)
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 10:36 AM Aug 2016

Trump's level of diction: Natural or planned?

Donald Trump, in public, speaks with a level of diction at about the 4th grade level. He uses no words unfamiliar to a 10 year old child. He either speaks in sentence fragments or very short sentences. In other words, he is speaking to a low-vocabulary, uneducated audience.

Now, either that is his own natural level of diction or a calculated marketing strategy. As a website content writer, one of the things I do is to write websites that target a unique demographic. I focus on a target audience. I write specifically at a level of diction that is comfortable for and familiar to that target audience.

However, I suspect that Donald Trump, unlike myself, has no control over how he speaks. I believe he is speaking at his own natural level of diction. I can, and do write for any target audience. Depending on the nature of the website, I use a different style and level of vocabulary.

I have not heard Trump speak, however, at any diction level beyond middle school. I don't believe he is capable of it. Were he to be President, he will be speaking regularly to highly-educated people who understand and use a vocabulary that appears to beyond Trump's understanding. If he is not capable of adjusting his level of diction, he will appear to be a weak thinker and speaker.

I do not believe he is capable of matching wits with people who typically rise to a high level in government. I do not believe he has that capacity. I believe the level of diction he uses is the only one he has available. That is a very sad commentary on people who would vote for the man, and an alarming thing to consider, looking forward.

Trump is, in short, a dullard. I am convinced that is true.

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Wounded Bear

(58,440 posts)
3. It's patter...
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 10:41 AM
Aug 2016
Patter is a prepared and practiced speech that is designed to produce a desired response from its audience. Examples of occupations with a patter might include the auctioneer, salesperson, dance caller, or comedian.

The term may have been a colloquial shortening of "Pater Noster", and may have referred to the practice of mouthing or mumbling prayers quickly and mechanically.

From this, it became a slang word for the secret and equally incomprehensible mutterings of a cant language used by beggars, thieves, gypsies, etc., and then the fluent plausible talk that a cheap-jack employs to pass off his goods. Many illusionists, e.g., card magicians, use patter both to enhance the show and to distract the attention of the spectators.

It is thus also used of any rapid manner of talking, and of a patter-song, in which a very large number of words have to be sung at high speed to fit the music. A western square dance caller may interpolate patter — in the form of metrical lines, often of nonsense — to fill in between commands to the dancers.[1]

In some circumstances, the talk becomes a different sense of "patter": to make a series of rapid strokes or pats, as of raindrops. Here it a form of onomatopeia.

In certain forms of entertainment, peep shows (in the historical meaning) and Russian rayok, patter is an important component of a show. The radio DJ patter is among the roots of rapping.

In hypnotherapy, the hypnotist uses a 'patter' or script to deliver positive suggestions for change to the client.

Emphasis mine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patter

MineralMan

(146,192 posts)
4. Yes. The question is whether or not he is capable of anything else.
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 10:43 AM
Aug 2016

I do not think he is. I've seen no evidence that he is. He can read a teleprompter, but I'm certain he did not write what he is reading when he does.

Wounded Bear

(58,440 posts)
5. I suspect that he is capable of it in private...
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 10:48 AM
Aug 2016

but he has shown little capability of it in his public discourse, tbs.

He's a salesman, and like all successful salesmen, what he is eventually selling is himself. At least the polls indicate that a majority of the American voting public ain't buying.

bigbrother05

(5,995 posts)
6. His education indicates a better vocabulary, but doesn't use it
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 11:49 AM
Aug 2016

It's possible he is erudite in private, but I doubt it. He's in the same vein as W, a child of privilege that has chosen a persona that suits his personality and has served him well through a charmed existence.

Blue Idaho

(4,988 posts)
7. His education is probably not what you think it is...
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 11:59 AM
Aug 2016

Much like W, his degree was not about spending time in classes honing his intellectual skills, it's about paying money for a sheepskin.

MineralMan

(146,192 posts)
8. Going to college doesn't guarantee being educated.
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 01:02 PM
Aug 2016

Many people make it through the entire four years without really learning all that much. I suspect that Trump is one of those people.

DemocratSinceBirth

(99,705 posts)
12. He can't be that dumb. It has to be feigned. Ditto for Bush.
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 01:22 PM
Aug 2016

Bush pulled a 1270 on his SAT. That's not Einstein smart but it is 85th or so percentile smart.

Trump speaks like a ten year old. It has to be an act.

PatSeg

(46,804 posts)
11. When he gave one of his first teleprompter speeches,
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 01:18 PM
Aug 2016

he said the word "multitude" and I knew he didn't write the speech. He said the word like it was a foreign language.

MoonRiver

(36,926 posts)
9. I think it's his level of communication.
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 01:05 PM
Aug 2016

He actually needs to be attracting more college educated voters, but is so obviously ignorant that this group is turned off by the little bigot.

PatSeg

(46,804 posts)
10. I understand adjusting
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 01:15 PM
Aug 2016

you vocabulary and speaking style for your audience, but when it comes to Trump, I believe this is absolutely the best he can do. He talks like a man who has not read a book in decades and has the most limited vocabulary of any public figure I can think of.

I remember assignments in grade school where we had to fill a page or write X-amount of words, so we often did what Trumps does in his speeches - repeat the same words or phrases over and over again. He usually speaks in generalities and when he is specific, his information or data is often incorrect. He evidently pulls his statistics out of the air or "people tell" him.

Yes you're right, Trump is a "dullard" and like many dullards, he compensates by being louder and more animated. Sadly his followers hang on his every word, all 100 of them.

Orsino

(37,428 posts)
13. The man who never had to grow up or learn anything...
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 02:31 PM
Aug 2016

...whose every whim is catered to by a staff of sycophants, is going to speak, as does Trump, with a small vocabulary and a lot of repetition.

Whenever he says "very, very" or "believe me," I just hear "I want potty" and "piggyback."

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