It's not exactly a shocker that Hillary Clinton is the most feminine sounding candidate according to Textio, a company that uses software to evaluate language. However, the second most feminine sounding candidate might be something of a surprise: Donald Trump.
Using phrases like "my beautiful family" and "lasting relationships," analysts found that Trump's speech tended toward the feminine, according to statistically significant responses to words by the different sexes. Trump, however, also skews very masculine in his speech, using insults like "moron" or phrases like "absolutely destroy."
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But of course, it is not just about what you say. How you say words matters too — and Trump gets high marks there as well. Even higher than Clinton, in fact:
Software is imperfect at understanding human language because it misses important clues like gestures, tone of voice and facial expressions, said Robin Lakoff, professor emerita of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, who in 1975 published a book, Language and Woman's Place, that led to a variety of research on language and gender.Based on these nonverbal cues, she concluded that Mr. Trump was the most feminine speaker of all the candidates, even more than Mrs. Clinton — he gestures a lot, is very expressive, poses statements as questions and repeatedly explains himself, all of which are commonly feminine, she said. [The New York Times]
Read more about how the candidates speak in The New York Times.
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