IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/334719.html

Simply Speaking? Language Complexity among (Non-)Populist Actors in Parliamentary Debates

Author

Listed:
  • Kittel, Rebecca C.

Abstract

Do populist politicians use simpler language to get closer to ‘ordinary’ citizens? Current studies – both qualitative and quantitative – are divided on whether populist actors actually use simpler language. Analysing a large corpus of text of German parliamentary debates from January 1991 to September 2021, this article aims to resolve this controversy by measuring language complexity in parliamentary discourse. The article hypothesizes that populist actors use simpler language, following their ideal of a simplified world between ‘good’ and ‘evil’. The analysis, however, positively refutes that, and instead shows that right-wing populist actors use the most complex language. Left-wing populists seem to use somewhat average language complexity. At the same time, the study finds that language complexity decreased significantly in the German parliament over time. Additionally, this article shows that language complexity is context-specific and people-dependent. As such, this article also discusses simple language as a tool for substantive and surrogate representation.

Suggested Citation

  • Kittel, Rebecca C., 2025. "Simply Speaking? Language Complexity among (Non-)Populist Actors in Parliamentary Debates," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 60(4), pages 1336-1366.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:334719
    DOI: 10.1017/gov.2025.4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/334719/1/Full-text-article-Kittel-Simply-speaking.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1017/gov.2025.4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paris Aslanidis, 2018. "Measuring populist discourse with semantic text analysis: an application on grassroots populist mobilization," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 1241-1263, May.
    2. Kenneth Benoit & Kevin Munger & Arthur Spirling, 2019. "Measuring and Explaining Political Sophistication through Textual Complexity," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(2), pages 491-508, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Özdemir, Sina & Rauh, Christian, 2022. "A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 133-145.
    2. Sina Özdemir & Christian Rauh, 2022. "A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(1), pages 133-145.
    3. Roberta Rocca & Katharina Lawall & Manos Tsakiris & Laura Cram, 2024. "Communicating Europe: a computational analysis of the evolution of the European Commission’s communication on Twitter," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 1223-1274, October.
    4. Rauh, Christian, 2022. "Clear messages to the European public? The language of European Commission press releases 1985–2020," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Latest Ar, pages 1-19.
    5. Koch, Cédric M., 2021. "Varieties of populism and the challenges to Global Constitutionalism: Dangers promises and implications," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 10(3), pages 400-438.
    6. Hamza Bennani & Matthias Neuenkirch, 2024. "Too complex to digest? Federal tax bills and their processing in US financial markets," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(5), pages 1179-1203, October.
    7. Sina Özdemir & Christian Rauh, 2022. "A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(1), pages 133-145.
    8. Laura Cervi & Santiago Tejedor & Mónica Gracia Villar, 2023. "Twitting Against the Enemy: Populist Radical Right Parties Discourse Against the (Political) “Other”," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(2), pages 235-248.
    9. Laura Cervi & Santiago Tejedor, 2020. "Framing “The Gypsy Problem”: Populist Electoral Use of Romaphobia in Italy (2014–2019)," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-16, June.
    10. Rebecca Cordell & Kristian Skrede Gleditsch & Florian G Kern & Laura Saavedra-Lux, 2020. "Measuring institutional variation across American Indian constitutions using automated content analysis," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(6), pages 777-788, November.
    11. Ferrara, Federico Maria & Angino, Siria, 2022. "Does clarity make central banks more engaging? Lessons from ECB communications," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    12. Alexander Baturo & Julia Gray, 2024. "Leaders in the United Nations General Assembly: Revitalization or politicization?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 721-752, October.
    13. Adam M. Samaha & Michael Heise & Gregory C. Sisk, 2020. "Inputs and Outputs on Appeal: An Empirical Study of Briefs, Big Law, and Case Complexity," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(3), pages 519-555, September.
    14. Ondřej Stulík, 2023. "Recognising and applying equivalent meanings: an example of creating a codebook from a language-game of extremism in the Czech Republic," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 1501-1518, April.
    15. Mircea Popa, 2025. "Modelling policy action using natural language processing: evidence for a long-run increase in policy activism in the UK," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 1-51, May.
    16. Andreas C Goldberg & Lukas Benedikt Hoffmann, 2024. "Peoples’ perspectives on the ‘Future of Europe’ – A comparative study from within and beyond the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 25(1), pages 151-172, March.
    17. Amarasinghe, Ashani, 2022. "Diverting domestic turmoil," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    18. Gloria Gennaro & Elliott Ash, 2022. "Emotion and Reason in Political Language," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(643), pages 1037-1059.
    19. Vyshnevskyi, Iegor & Jombo, Wytone & Sohn, Wook, 2024. "The clarity of monetary policy communication and financial market volatility in developing economies," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    20. Zehnter, Lisa, 2025. "Identity Through Distinction: Contextualizing Populist In- and Outgroup References," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 0, pages 1-21.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:334719. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.