“An election campaign is a linguistic catalyst”

On 6 September, a new state parliament will be elected in Saxony-Anhalt. The parties are vying for votes: through images, public appearances and, above all, language. Linguist Prof. Kersten Sven Roth discusses political slogans, emotions in the election campaign and the danger of overly simplistic answers.

What is election campaign communication, and what role does language play in it?

An election is the most far-reaching act through which citizens fulfil their role as the sovereign power of a democratic state and directly exercise power. During an election campaign, candidates seek to win over voters with images, symbolic gestures and, above all, language. For us as speaking beings, persuasion is, after all, primarily a linguistic matter.

Does campaign language differ fundamentally from everyday political communication?

Not really. Enhancing one’s own position, undermining that of one’s opponent and appropriating popular catchphrases for one’s own cause – all of this is generally part of political language. However, precisely because election campaigns are actually about the political survival of the applicants, they are naturally highly polarised. They act as a kind of catalyst that intensifies all of this. The personalisation of politics, for example, increases during election campaigns in modern media democracies. The inherent tendency in political communication to distil political concepts into pithy statements is also evident – in an election campaign, it seems, everything can be condensed into a handy slogan of just a few words.

What role do emotions play in voting decisions?

The fact that emotions have always played a major role in election campaigns stems less from the nature of politics than from human nature itself. Human beings are not rational creatures. We make almost all our life decisions irrationally and based on our emotions: which car we buy, where we go on holiday and who we marry – we do not decide any of these things rationally. This applies all the more to voting decisions, of course, especially as we generally simply lack the specialist knowledge in the various policy areas to be able to make truly rational decisions here.

How can such emotions be addressed through language?

It is not as easy to control as is sometimes suggested; human beings are, after all, too complex for that. But certain high-impact words such as ‘freedom’, ‘peace’ and ‘justice’ are, of course, well suited to triggering certain emotions. This also applies to the word ‘homeland’, which the Left is deliberately using in the current state election campaign in Saxony-Anhalt to counter the AfD – and not by chance. However, there is absolutely no reason to view the evocation of emotions per se in a critical light. Conviction without emotion is unthinkable, as rhetoricians recognised as far back as antiquity. It only becomes problematic when the appeal to emotion is deliberately made at the cost of facts and objectivity. Rhetoric would say: ethos and pathos are necessary, but they must not lead to the complete suppression of logos. Yet this is precisely a hallmark of the populist mode of political communication and the corresponding campaign rhetoric.

Why are words such as ‘security’ or ‘family’ so politically appealing?

These, too, are of course good examples of the ‘high-value words’ I just mentioned. It is precisely their potential to be interpreted differently depending on one’s ideology that makes them such political ‘universal keys’. These are words that can be used in very different ways, but which always denote something positive and desirable. Nobody writes ‘We are against security’ on their posters, but everyone understands something different by the promise of security. I do not believe one can say that these words are particularly effective in every case beyond their emotional connotations. It is rather the other way round: precisely because they denote something that is, by definition, desirable, all political parties are compelled to ensure that people associate them with their own concerns and positions. In political linguistics, this is referred to as the need to ‘claim terms’.

How is social media changing the language of election campaigns?

Firstly, every medium influences the language that is possible within it. On the radio, a football commentator must simply narrate the action; on television, they can provide more context. On social media, language is overlaid by images, videos or music and reduced to a few lines or barely 30 seconds. In this respect, posts are not so dissimilar to election posters.

So what is the biggest change?

The algorithms of social media apps ensure that campaign posts are targeted very precisely at specific audiences. If these are first-time voters, then a completely different language will be used than when addressing people of retirement age. This is a dramatic change in the nature of election campaigns. Traditionally, part of the process has always involved bringing the electorate together through the media for a certain period of time in a kind of shared public forum. This made it easy to exchange views and discuss the parties’ proposals on a shared basis – whether at work, in a club or within the family. This is important for democratic societies, but it is now being lost.

When is an election promise actually verifiable?

It becomes verifiable when it is specific – in other words, when it is not limited to lofty rhetoric but sets out concrete measures. If, for example, it does not promise ‘equality in education’ but instead specifies the introduction of certain forms of support schemes for children from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds at specific schools, to a specific extent. Incidentally, if you take a closer look at election manifestos, you’ll find such specifically worded promises here and there. However, the question seems to reflect a widespread mistrust that parties regularly promise things during election campaigns that they have no intention of delivering on. That’s generally not the case at all. In coalition governments – which is what we are mostly dealing with in Germany – a party cannot implement its manifesto one-to-one, and often that is not such a bad thing for the public. Coalitions are also a form of the democratic separation of powers, but that is not a linguistic question in the strict sense.

Nevertheless, many voters feel that parties do not keep their promises.

From a purely linguistic point of view, I would have to resolve the problem using speech-act theory: the term ‘election promise’, which we use so frequently in everyday language and in the media, is simply a misattribution of the linguistic act that is being performed. These are not promises at all, but rather ‘declarations of intent’. Anyone who understands how parliamentary government works – and who also expects a government, after the election, not only to serve its own voters and govern decisively, but also to take the national interest into account – is aware of this when they vote. If you tell your family that you want to go on holiday to the Adriatic, but everyone else prefers the Baltic Sea, then you’ll probably not get your way in the family discussion and it’ll end up being Lake Constance. Democracy is a laborious process.

What linguistic cues should voters pay particular attention to?

We are not puppets of election campaign strategists, and they do not possess magical powers either. Voters are required to make a little mental effort. Caution is always called for when surprisingly simple answers are offered to difficult problems. You shouldn’t buy a car from a car salesman who tells you that it’s no problem at all to buy a luxury car, even though you have no money, simply because he promises you a fantastic, hassle-free instalment plan – no matter what figures he throws at you. You know that. Unfortunately, however, this is precisely what has become more prevalent in political communication – and in the typical populist style.

How does this oversimplification manifest itself?

In the shifting of structural problems onto groups of individuals. The major challenges of a society shaped by migration are turned into migrants being the problem; the problems of the school system are blamed on incompetent teachers; and the structural disadvantages of East Germany compared to West Germany are attributed to either arrogant ‘Wessis’ or lazy ‘Ossis’. So this would be a kind of linguistic signal designed to persuade you to cast your vote elsewhere. It is far too valuable for that, and you can be sure of one thing: you yourself also belong to one of these supposedly guilty groups.

Thank you very much for the interview!