Linguistic analysis finds Donald Trump speaks like a 4th grader

Comment: Quite fitting. A dumbed-down leader for a dumbed-down population.

Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump talks like a 4th grader, according to a linguistic analysis performed by Politico's Jack Shafer. Shafer ran the text of Trumps' responses in the recent Republican debate through the Flesch-Kincaid test, designed to determine how difficult a given passage is to understand for English readers:

Run through the Flesch-Kincaid grade-level test, his text of responses score at the 4th-grade reading level. For Trump, that's actually pretty advanced. All the other candidates rated higher, with Ted Cruz earning 9th-grade status. Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, and Scott Walker scored at the 8th-grade level. John Kasich, the next-lowest after Trump, got a 5th-grade score.

According to Shafer, Trump's remarks at an August 11 news conference in Birch Run, Michigan, put him at an even-lower 3rd grade level (in the United States, 3rd graders are typically eight or nine years old). Trump is 69 years old.

Source: Newsweek

Reader Comments

rs1 · 2015-08-14T21:37:42Z

clearly

clearly donald trump knows how to communicate to his target audience... What is not being considered is that perhaps his talking at a 4th grade level is deliberate.

Ruth · 2015-08-15T00:24:31Z

That would be too smart! I wonder what effect talking like a 4th grader has on lying? And which the public would see as more appropriate?

Highland Fleet Lute · 2015-08-14T21:51:37Z

wat next biff tannen 4 prez fcol...[Link]

Mandatory Intellectomy · 2015-08-14T22:19:20Z

Well, propaganda doesn't work with sophisticated language.

FireShadow · 2015-08-14T23:05:54Z

And,

It took a linguistic analysis to tell us this?

Anya4000 · 2015-08-14T23:13:04Z

USA Education

I read somewhere most Americans don't even read a book a year. Also, their test scores (compared to other countries) have been gradually slipping for many years now. It should be obvious to everyone that watching tons of TV and movies isn't going to make you any smarter. (America has an obesity problem) Obese people aren't likely to put in the extra effort to study or educate themselves about a subject besides reading a few things on the internet. Lastly, studies have been done demonstrating what happens to the brain when people consume way too much sugar (this is a serious problem in North America). The people consuming three times more sugar than is healthy for them experience brain fog, poor eye site and extreme lethargy (which eventually leads to obesity and diabetes). Trump is probably aware of these facts and is doing what he can to reach his target audience.

Baybars · 2015-08-16T05:13:10Z

Here, this sums it up...[Link]

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Linguistic analysis finds Donald Trump speaks like a 4th grader

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