If Donald Trump didn't talk the way he talks, would he get the support he gets? Almost certainly not.
"He wants to sound macho," John Baugh, a linguistics professor at Washington University, told the Washington Post. "As part of his whole tough-guy persona, he adopts almost a working-class style of speech."
Nicole Holliday, a linguist studying at New York University, agrees. "Traditionally, the New York City accent has been stigmatized as rough and not necessarily intelligent," she explains. "But people do perceive it as authoritative. So he's got an accent that people don't like, but that they find credible. Trump sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, because of his accent."
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But the best way to understand how Trump's accent affects his supporters is to hear his words without it, as in this video where comedian Peter Serafinowicz dubbed Trump with a formal, Transatlantic accent.
"What if Donald Trump had elocution lessons?" the video description asks. Well, probably he wouldn't have a campaign.
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