The rules for the Sept. 10 debate are set, and while there will not be an audience in the studio with presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, millions will be watching. UCLA election experts are no exception and can help analyze the candidates’ words and gestures.

Norma Mendoza-Denton, professor of anthropology and author of the book “Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies,” studies languages used by politicians, and works to equip us to understand the language of our current political moment. She has even developed bingo cards to help debate watchers engage and keep track of words and speech tactics that manipulate reality.

“All of us are linguists in a way. All of us try to be critical when somebody makes an argument and they’re trying to pull a fast one on you, each one of us has to use our critical capacity, to try to figure out how reality is being constructed for us. It doesn’t matter what spectrum of politics you’re coming from.”

Daniel Treisman, a political science professor, and graduate student Nikita Savin analyzed transcripts of 99 Trump speeches from April 2015 to June 2024 and published their results in “Donald Trump’s Words.” They found that the use of violent vocabulary in Trump’s speeches has increased over time, reaching an average level this year that is higher than any other major party presidential candidate since 2008. 

“We know from past research that inflammatory rhetoric can prompt a few unstable individuals to engage in political violence. Given that, it’s important to carefully monitor the speech of radical populists like Trump. How Trump’s vocabulary will evolve in the coming months remains to be seen. But the rising temperature of his rhetoric bears watching.”