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Chapter 4. Twitter as political discourse

The case of Sarah Palin

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This study considers how the first female Republican vice-presidential candidate in American politics, Sarah Palin, draws on stereotypes of gendered language in crafting her persona within the limitations of the Twitter platform of 140 characters. Her use of a more informal and vernacular style associated her symbolically not only with a populist message but also with the covert prestige linked to working class male speech. Palin, brought from relative obscurity as governor of Alaska, embodied a compelling combination of beauty-pageant appearance and traditional female roles of wife and mother with a brash and informal speaking style more usually associated with men. This study examines how her distinctive spoken style and political stance are translated into written tweets.

  • Affiliations: 1: The University of Alabama

References

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    2012 “In Nonstop Whirlwind of G.O.P. Campaigns, Twitter Is a Critical Tool.”International New York Times, January28. www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/us/politics/twitter-is-a-critical-tool-in-republican-campaigns.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper.
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References

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    1998 “Letters by Phone or Speech by Other Means: The Linguistics of Email.” Language and Communication18(2): 133-170. doi: 10.1016/S0271‑5309(98)00005‑6
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5309(98)00005-6 [Google Scholar]
  2. Burger, John D. , John Henderson , George Kim , and Guido Zarrella
    2011 “Discriminating Gender on Twitter.” InProceedings of the 2011 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, 1301-1309. Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, July 27-31. © Association for Computational Linguistics.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Coates, Jennifer and Pia Pichler
    eds. 2011 Language and Gender: A Reader2nd Edition. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Coupland, Nikolas
    2007 Style: Language Variation and Identity. New York: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511755064
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511755064 [Google Scholar]
  5. Davies, Catherine E
    2006 “Gendered Sense of Humor as Expressed Through Aesthetic Typifications.” Journal of Pragmatics38(1): 96-113. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2005.06.006
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.06.006 [Google Scholar]
  6. 2009 “The Linguistic Mocking of Sarah Palin.”Paper presented at Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, Atlanta, GA, March 7.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. DeCapua, Andrea and Diana Boxer
    1999 “Bragging, Boasting and Bravado: Male Banter in a Brokerage House.” Women and Language22(21): 5-11.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Dresner, Eli and Susan C. Herring
    2010 “Functions of the Nonverbal in CMC: Emoticons and Illocutionary Force.” Communication Theory20(3): 249–268 doi: 10.1111/j.1468‑2885.2010.01362.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2010.01362.x [Google Scholar]
  9. Eckert, Penelope and John R. Rickford
    eds. 2001 Style and Sociolinguistic Variation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Elis, Roy D , Sunshine Hillygus , and Norman Nie
    2010 “The Dynamics of Candidate Evaluations and Vote Choice in 2008: Looking to the Past or Future?” Electoral Studies29(4): 582-593. doi: 10.1016/j.electstud.2010.04.005
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2010.04.005 [Google Scholar]
  11. Fischer, John N.L
    1958 “Social Influences on the Choice of a Linguistic Variant.” Word14: 47-56.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Gallup
    2013 www.gallup.com/poll/1678/most-admired-man-woman.aspx
  13. Golbeck, Jennifer , Justin Grimes , and Anthony Rogers
    2009 “Twitter Use by the U.S. Congress.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology61(8): 1-20.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Gumperz, John J
    1992 “Contextualization Cues and Understanding.” InRethinking Context, edited by Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin , 229-252. New York: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Heflick, Nathan A. and Jamie L. Goldenberg
    2009 “Objectifying Sarah Palin: Evidence That Objectification Causes Women to be Perceived as Less Completent and Less Fully Human.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology45: 598-601. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.02.008
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2009.02.008 [Google Scholar]
  16. Herring, Susan
    1996 Computer-mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social, and Cross-cultural Perspectives. Amsterdam: Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/pbns.39
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     [Google Scholar]
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    eds. 2003 The Handbook of Language and Gender. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. doi: 10.1002/9780470756942
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  20. Jenkins, Mercilee
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     [Google Scholar]
  21. Labov, William
    1966 “Hypercorrection by the Lower Middle Class as a Factor in Linguistics Change.” InSociolinguistics, edited by William Bright , 84-113. The Hague: Mouton.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. 1972 “Some Principles of Linguistics Methodology.” Language in Society1(1): 97-120. doi: 10.1017/S0047404500006576
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500006576 [Google Scholar]
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    1979 “Stylistic Strategies within a Grammar of Style.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences: Language, Sex, and Gender: Does La Difference Make a Difference?327(1): 53–78. doi: 10.1111/j.1749‑6632.1979.tb17753.x
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    2008-2009 “The Clinton/Palin Phenomenon and Young Women Voters.” Journal of Public Law & Policy30(2): 513-547.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Palin, Sarah and Joseph R. Biden
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     [Google Scholar]
  26. Palin, Sarah
    2009-present Twitterfeed. twitter.com/#!/SarahPalinUSA
  27. 2009-present Facebook page. www.facebook.com/#!/sarahpalin?sk=wall&filter=2
  28. . August7 2009: Facebook page. www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=113851103434)
  29. . November8 2010 Facebook page re her reading habits. www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=453294443434
  30. 2011 Sarah Palin Responds to Tuscon Shooting. YouTube video, 7:42. Posted by “amNewYork,” January12. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiAEWumuu98
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Politicstweet.com
    . Tweets from when Sarah Palin was governor of Alaska. politicstweet.com.html?id=AKGovSarahPalin
  32. Purnell, Thomas , Eric Raimy , and Joseph Salmons
    2009 “Defining Dialect, Perceiving Dialect, and New Dialect Formation: Sarah Palin’s Speech.” Journal of English Linguistics37(4): 331-355. doi: 10.1177/0075424209348685
     https://doi.org/10.1177/0075424209348685 [Google Scholar]
  33. Republican Presidential Debate on Twitter
    . 140townhall.com/ [Accessed8/28/2011]
  34. Tagliamonte, Sali A. and Derek Denis
    2008 “LINGUISTIC RUIN? LOL! INSTANT MESSAGING AND TEEN LANGUAGE.” American Speech83(1): 3-34. doi: 10.1215/00031283‑2008‑001
     https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-2008-001 [Google Scholar]
  35. Tannen, Deborah
    1984 Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends. Norwood, NJ: Ablex
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Thurlow, Crispin
    2006 “From Statistical Panic to Moral Panic: The Metadiscursive Construction and Popular Exaggeration of New Media Language in the Print Media.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication11(3): 667–701 doi: 10.1111/j.1083‑6101.2006.00031.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00031.x [Google Scholar]
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    1988 On Dialect. Oxford: Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Twitter
    2010 Discover More About #new Twitter. YouTube video 3:10. Posted by “Twitter,” September23. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NshQFrpC2O4&feature=relmfu
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Wolfram, Walt , and Natalie Schilling-Estes
    2006 American English: Dialects and Variation2nd Edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Zimmer, Ben
    2008 “Palin’s Accent.”Language Log (blog), Oct.1. languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=658
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Bailey, Frank , Ken Morris , and Jeanne Devon
    2011 Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of our Tumultuous Years. New York: Howard Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Cavett, Dick
    2008 “The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla.”International New York Times, Nov.11. opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/the-wild-wordsmith-of-wasilla/
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University
    2008 womensissues.about.com/od/womensissuesin2008race/a/WomenVote2008.htm
  45. Draper, Robert
    2010 “The Palin Network: How the G.O.P.’s Leading Shadow Candidate Runs Her Guerilla Organization.” The New York Times Magazine, Nov.21, p.43-49, continued on 56.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Elder, Larry
    2011 “Obamacare: The New N-word?”RealClearPolitics, February24. www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/02/24/obamacare_-_the_new_n_word_109017.html
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Giffords, Gabrielle
    2010 Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Talks Palin Cross Hairs. YouTube video, 4:54. Posted by “newstodayvideo,” March25. www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7046bo92a4 [Accessed8/28/2011]
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Parker, Ashley
    2012 “In Nonstop Whirlwind of G.O.P. Campaigns, Twitter Is a Critical Tool.”International New York Times, January28. www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/us/politics/twitter-is-a-critical-tool-in-republican-campaigns.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Pinker, Steven
    2008 “Everything You Heard Is Wrong.”New York Times, Oct.3. www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04pinker.html
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Stewart, Jon
    2011 “Sarah Palin’s Folksy Word Salad.”The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, video 2:23. June6. www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-6-2011/sarah-palin-s-folksy-word-salad
     [Google Scholar]
  51. “White House: Obama’s ‘Wee-Weed Up’ Comment Refers to Bed-Wetting” 2009 FoxNews Politics, August21. www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/21/white-house-obamas-wee-weed-comment-refers-bed-wetting/
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Wilson, Fred
    2011 “Mocked and Misunderstood.”AVC (blog). www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/12/mocked-and-misunderstood.html [Accessed 1/27/2012]
     [Google Scholar]

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