I compared their responses to these questions with their pronunciations.
Then I asked them questions about their political identities, views and opinions. In my study, I had participants read random sentences out loud, some of which included the names of foreign places, and others that included English words borrowed from foreign languages. Speakers who identify as Democrats are likelier to use these kinds of pronunciations of foreign words than those who identify as Republicans. My own research has found that this pronunciation difference isn’t relegated to presidents. He was even thanked for it: Pakistanis reportedly expressed appreciation to the White House for his pronunciation of “Pakistan” as “pock-ee-stahn,” rather than using a pronunciation like “ pack-iss-stan.” You may have noticed President Donald Trump has a unique way of saying the names of foreign places.įor example, he’s pronounced “Tanzania” as “ tan-zay-nee-uh,” as opposed to “tan-zuh-nee-uh,” and “Namibia” as “ nam-bee-uh” instead of “na-mih-bee-uh.”Īt the other end of the spectrum, President Barack Obama was a “ stickler” for saying foreign words in a way that more closely mimicked the pronunciation of native speakers.
How members of America’s two parties view the country - and its place in the world - might explain this phenomenon.
In a recent study, I was able to show how your political orientation can influence how you pronounce certain words. Politics can predict the TV shows we watch, the shops we frequent and the places we live.
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