Word clouds provide one perspective.
The word cloud above (made with Wordle) shows the top 300 words from the 5th Republican debate. The debate had 23,777 total words, 2,803 of these unique (12% unique vocabulary).
This second word cloud is from tonight’s debate, also made with Wordle and showing the top 300 words. It has a total of 18,426 words, 2,601 unique (14% unique vocabulary).
In both clouds, “people,” “isis,” “senator,” “president,” “back,” “know,” “country,” “hillary,” “military,” “obama” “immigration,” and many other identical terms appear prominently.
Both clouds show an emphasis on notions of “respect,” “tradition,” “unity,” and “authority.” “We” is used 807 times in both debates combined, “I” 705 times.
According to stats on Voyant tools, the debate without Trump has a higher vocabulary.
Looking at both debates together, of note is: there is 1 mention of “education,” 1 mention of “poverty,” 15 mentions of “women,” 18 mentions of “children.”
So much more could be done with this data, but my dissertation awaits. I’ll be graduating here soon. Just wanted to get this out there! 🙂
Dr. Andrew Joseph Pegoda 