A bit on last night's debate
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I downloaded rev.com's transcript of last night's vice-presidential debate, and did a bit of analysis — the most interesting stuff will come later, but to start with I did a couple of my standard simple-minded analyses, starting with the type-token plots:
It's somewhat interesting that Walz and Harris are so similar, and that Vance is kind of splitting the difference towards Trump's low lexical diversity (due to repetitive rhetoric).
I also calculated Vance and Walz's most characteristic words (or at least the words most differently used in this debate), using the method described and exemplified here.
Vance's top ten were
country 44 (5156.45) 6 (707.631) 50 (2939.1) 3.065
american 44 (5156.45) 7 (825.569) 51 (2997.88) 2.957
actually 31 (3632.95) 2 (235.877) 33 (1939.81) 2.866
tim 25 (2929.8) 0 (0) 25 (1469.55) 2.825
margaret 22 (2578.23) 0 (0) 22 (1293.2) 2.650
of 232 (27188.6) 146 (17219) 378 (22219.6) 2.573
lot 44 (5156.45) 13 (1533.2) 57 (3350.58) 2.352
policies 17 (1992.27) 0 (0) 17 (999.295) 2.329
walz 15 (1757.88) 0 (0) 15 (881.731) 2.187
illegal 14 (1640.69) 0 (0) 14 (822.949) 2.113
where the 8 fields in each line are:
- Word
- Vance's count
- (Vance's count per million)
- Walz's count
- (Walz's count per million)
- Summed count
- (Summed count per million)
- Estimated log odds that it's from Vance
(Sorry for all that, it's what my program emits and I don't have time now to fix it…)
Walz's top ten words were
there 14 (1640.69) 69 (8137.75) 83 (4878.91) -3.489
this 71 (8320.64) 154 (18162.5) 225 (13226) -3.257
minnesota 1 (117.192) 26 (3066.4) 27 (1587.11) -2.744
it 96 (11250.4) 169 (19931.6) 265 (15577.2) -2.656
senator 1 (117.192) 20 (2358.77) 21 (1234.42) -2.366
folks 2 (234.384) 21 (2476.71) 23 (1351.99) -2.269
sure 2 (234.384) 21 (2476.71) 23 (1351.99) -2.269
vance 0 (0) 15 (1769.08) 15 (881.731) -2.200
things 10 (1171.92) 35 (4127.85) 45 (2645.19) -2.157
state 1 (117.192) 15 (1769.08) 16 (940.513) -1.999
's 117 (13711.5) 174 (20521.3) 291 (17105.6) -1.993
In other speeches and interviews from the two of them, Vance's greater predilection for "of" vs. Walz's "'s" is consistent — about which more later — as is Walz's more frequent use of "it" and "there". Not really political but maybe of some linguistic interest.
DavidP said,
October 2, 2024 @ 3:18 pm
So it was Biden speaking into Kamala's ear rings?
KeithB said,
October 2, 2024 @ 5:46 pm
Note that Vance called Governor Walz "Tim", while Walz called Vance "Senator", as shown by their top ten words.
Joe said,
October 2, 2024 @ 6:07 pm
I would love an analysis of their accents, as they're two now-famous and potentially important people whose voices the public hasn't been hearing so much. Walz doesn't seem to have much of the beloved Minnesota accent, probably because he grew up in Nebraska; I think I heard the I in "Tim" occasionally leaning toward the I in "team" in a way I associate with the inner western US. Vance's O sounded mostly General American like the rest of his accent, but occasionally (maybe when he slipped, like when two or three times when he accidentally pronounced his opponent's name correctly) it was a bit more Southern, and once in a while the long vowel sounded like it ended in an L, an American accent I've heard before but can't place, e.g. I listened to a podcast interview with a legal expert who kept talking about the lawl. I don't actually know what accent I expected from someone who grew up in Appalachian Ohio-Kentucky and eventually went to Yale and the San Francisco venture-capital scene.