A peculiar site called Language Monitor (http://www.languagemonitor.com/) tracks the difficulty and structure of the language used in political and other speeches. In particular, it ranks the famous speeches according to the school grade level at which they could be understood. For example, Obama's victory speech is ranked as accessible to seventh graders, a much lower intellectual level than other great political speeches. Whether you think this is a triumph of accessibility or a sign of degradation, compare this: during the campaign, McCain's rhetoric (7.4) was almost two levels lower than Obama's (9.3).
| Kennedy Inaugural Address | 10.8 |
| Reagan ‘Tear Down This Wall” | 9.8 |
| Lincoln “Gettysburg Address” | 9.1 |
| Martin Luther King: ”I have a dream” | 8.8 |
| Obama 2004 Democrat Convention | 8.3 |
| Obama Victory Speech “Yes, we can” | 7.4 |
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sereshka
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Date: 2008-11-09 06:08 pm (UTC)http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/
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Date: 2008-11-09 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 02:37 am (UTC)