ó 


The Impact of Rhetorical Situation on Realism 
as Measured by the Lexical Content 

of Governors' State-of-the-State Speeches 

Daniel DiLeo 
Pennsylvania State University at Altoona 

This study uses Roderick Hart's method of measuring rhetorical 1/ realism, 1/ 

defined as language that indicates concern "with II tangible, immediate, recogniz­
able matters that affect people IS everyday lives, in two sets of gubernatorial state­
oj-the-state speeches. The party affiliation of the governor, economic growth 
and the per capita income of the state, the level of extremism in public opinion 
and the combination of divided government and the governor's lack of political 
experience did not have a co1lsistent impact on the level of realism in the gover­
nors'speeches. However, the governors' speeches exhibited higher levels of real­
ism in states with liberal public opinion. A variety of possible explanations for 
this finding are proposed. 

When governors present their agendas, they can express concerns that 
are concrete or abstract, immediate or long-range, and close to the every­
day experiences of their constituents or far from them. Roderick Hart 
defines texts that employ language referring to "tangible, immediate, 
recognizable matters that affect people's everyday lives" as texts that are 
high in "realism" (1997,49). Knowing the levels of realism in governors' 
speeches can suggest intellectually fertile questions about their goals, 
intended audiences, and rhetorical strategies. For example, governors 
whose agenda-setting speeches have high levels of realism could be at­
tempting to communicate directly with the voters, rather than just the 
legislators, by using everyday words to discuss widely shared concerns. 
Governors exhibiting low levels of realism could be trying to educate the 
voters or legislators about some relatively arcane topic or they could be 
"true believers," highly committed to an ideological doctrine that they 
share with their audience (Hart 1971, 253-254). 

The complex of influences that shape the style and substance of a 
speaker's rhetoric includes the audience capable of acting in the manner 
that the speaker intends, the exigency or necessity to persuade the audi­
ence to act, and the constraints that foreclose some rhetorical options 
while leaving others open (see Bitzer 1968). The purpose of this study is 
to specify the types of rhetorical situations, as defined by complexes of 
audiences, exigencies, and constraints that are most likely to induce gov­
ernors to employ realistic rhetoric when they propose their agendas. 

39 



Data 

In most states, governors present their formal agendas in a speech 
before the legislature at the start of the session in a highly ceremonial 
setting generally called a "state-of-the-state address." Because these 
speeches are records of the governors' agendas, studies have made use 
of them to estimate the impact of audiences (Van Assendelft 1997, 
Ferguson 1996), exigencies (Gosling 1991), and constraints (DiLeo 1997) 
on the substance of governors' agendas. 

It is reasonable to assume that to a considerable extent the content 
and style of gubernatorial rhetoric will depend on the personal concerns, 
choices of speechwriters, and idiosyncrasies of particular governors. If 
we look at a set of speeches delivered in a single year, it is very possible 
that rhetorical variation associated with theoretically interesting macro­
level variables such as party, political culture, public attitudes, or socio­
economic characteristics of states is really coincidental to variation among 
individual governors. However, if we find that rhetorical variation asso­
ciated with one or more of these large-bore variables is replicated in a set 
of speeches given in a different year by an entirely different set of gover­
nors, then we can be much more confident that we have found identifi­
able and quantifiable features of the rhetorical situation that shape the 
style and substance of the state-of-the-state speeches. Therefore, this study 
analyzes two sets of speeches: a set delivered in 1998 and a set delivered 
by an entirely different group of governors in 1991. 

Budget speeches provided the agendas of the governors of Connecti­
cut, Maine, Nebraska, and Vermont in 1991. The budget speech that 
Governor Miller of Georgia gave in 1998 was examined because he used 
that speech rather than his state-of-the-state speech to present his agenda 
that year. 

Methods 

The content-analysis program, DictionL uses several lists of words (" dic­
tionaries") and a measure of word length to profile a text's "lexical con­
tent," that is, the types of words that the author tends to use. Diction 
calculates a score for "realism" for SOO-word segments of text by adding 
occurrences of words belonging to dictionaries that indicate concern with 
practical, everyday, immediate concern and accounting for the complex­
ity and variety of the words in each text segment (Hart 1997, 49). The 
AppendiX provides a more detailed explanation of Diction's measure­
ment of "realism." 

Each of the speeches in the data set was composed of more than two 
SOO-word segments of text. A realism score was calculated for each speech 

40 



by computing the mean of the realism scores for the segments of the 
speech. None of the speeches contained d number of words that was 
evenly divisible by 500. Therefore, in computing the l1lean realism score 
for each speech, the remainder segment at the ena of the speech received 
a weight proportional to its length. 

After obtaining realism scores for the speeches in the data set, a pair 
of 500-word passages of lexl from speeches delivered in 1998 was dosely 
examined. One was the passage with the highest realism score from the 
speech with the highest realism score that year. The other was the pas­
sage with the lowest realism score from the speech with the lowest rea 1-
ism score in 1998. Inspection of these passages provided a sense of what 
Diction's realism score is measuring. 

Next, the levels of realism in the state-of-the-state speeches were ac­
counted for by examining features of the rhetorical situations that sur­
rounded the speeches and stimulated the governors to propose certain 
agenda items in certain ways. The primary audiences for the speeches 
were the state legislatures, which mayor may not have been of the same 
party as the governor. Research on the impact of divided government 
on gubernatorial agendas as presented in state-of-the state speeches in­
dicates that governors without prior experience in elective office tend to 
become less willmg to compromIse with legIslatures and more interested 
in appealing directly to the public when one or both houses of the legis­
lature is controlled by the opposing party (Van Assendelft 1997). When 
this occurs, governors may move away from discussions of specialized 
technical issues and governmental processes and toward a more realistic 
discourse rooted in the day-to-day experiences of the voters. In order to 
account for this type of situation, a dummy variable was used, scored 
one when the governor had not held prior elective office and faced a 
legislature with one or both houses controlled by the opposing party. 

The religious traditions of the groups that have settled in each of the 
states have given rise to distinctive patterns of orientation to political ac­
tion, or political culture, that influence the expectations and behavior of 
governors, legislators, and other political actors (Elazar 1994, 230-234). 
Realism should be highest in states with individualistic political cultures, 
where politics revolve around an open competition for particularized 
material benefits rather than for the abstract ideals that animate the mor­
alistic political culture or the values that undergird the hierarchical social 
order of the traditionalistic political culture. Political culture was 
operationalized with dummy variables with scores of one for states that 
are predominantly moralistic and traditionalistic according to Elazar's map. 

The voters are also part of the intended audience. They may be more 
liberal or more conservative than the voters in other states. The Erikson­
Wright-McIver rned~ure of publiL upinioll Wd::; u::;ed to indlcale lhe 

41 



public's liberalism (1993, 16). It is difficult to predict how public atti­
tudes may affect the degree of realism that the govem.OI exhibits, but in 
light of the profound effect that they have on the views and behavior of 
political elites (Erikson, Wright, and Mclver 1993, 78-89), they could well 
have an impact on gubernatorial realism. It is more logical to expect the 
extremism of a state's electorate to affect gubernatorial realism. A public 
extremism variable was computed from the squared deviation of the dif­
ference between the liberalism of a state's electorate and the mean public 
liberalism of the states in each data set. Governors of states with large 
scores on this variable should be less realistic than other governors. 

To a considerable extent, economic contraction and expansion define 
the exigencies that confront governors when they propose their agendas 
(Deyle 1992, GOSIDl.g 1991). Change in each slate's lotal personal income 
during the year preceding the speech was used to measure economic growth 
(U.S. Department of Commerce 1998, 459; 1992, 438; 1991, 441). The wealth 
or poverty of a state compared to that of other states also presents gover­
nors with a variety of needs to which they may choose to respond. State 
per capita income in the year preceding the speech served as a measure for 
this variable (U.S. Department of Commerce 1998, 460; 1992,439). 

Party affiliation of political elites is a good predictor of their political 
views and the policies they support (Erikson et al. 1993, 96-105). It could 
be that during the 1990s, governors of one party were more realistic than 
governors of the other party. Therefore, a dummy variable scored 1 for 
Democrats and 0 for Independents and Republicans was included. 

Findings 

Governor George Pataki, Republican of New York, gave the speech 
with the 500-word segments that had the highest mean realism score in 
the 1998 data set. The follOWing segment had the highest realism score 
of the fourteen segments in Governor Pataki's speech. Its high score was 
primarily due to the very high frequencies of words belonging to the 
"temporal" dictionary, which indicates concern with time, and the "con­
creteness" dictionary, which indicates a preference for discussing spe­
cific objects, people, and actions rather than abstract, general ideas. The 
words belonging to the temporal dictionary are in italics. The words 
bel,9nging to the concreteness dictionary are underlined . 

... New Yorkers that smaller, smarter government. And in doing 
so, we have given them that tax cut. 

The vast majority of New Yorkers pay state income taxes at rates 
alleasl25% luwer to/lay thalL they diLl ill 1994. Aud ye:s, 450,000 
lower income, working New Yorkers now pay no state income 
taxes at all. 

42 



But we didn't just cut income taxes. We cut taxes that most New 
Yorkers had never even heard of - consumer taxes that weren't 
even cal1ed taxes, and today even subway and bus fares are go­
ing down for the first time in state history. 

We've cut so many different taxes - in so many different ways 
-so many times - it would take me 10 minutes just to read you 
the list. 

Before we arrived here three years ago, New York led the nation 
in raising taxes. Every year since then, New York has led the 
nation in cutting taxes. 

In 1996, we cut taxes by more than the other 49 states combined. 
And in 1997, we cut taxes by five times more than Illinois, Texas, 
and California combined. 

By culling laxes, we have taken a giant step in returning eco­
nomic power to the people. 

But we didn't just cut taxes; we cut spending, by creating that 
smaller, smarter government. Because of our fiscal restraint, we 
ended our first two years with historic budget surpluses. And 
this ycar-- through our fiscal conservatism and strong economic 
policies - we will end the year with a surplus even larger than 
last year's $1.4 billion surplus. 

So let's cut taxes above and beyond the $500 million I've already 
signed into law for this year. In the budget I send you in two 
weeks, I will propose more than doubling this year's tax cuts to 
$1.2 billion. 

Last year we knew it was time to build on the tax cuts of the first 
two years. From this podium, I told you that it was time to cut 
taxes again. Different taxes. Oppressive taxes. Prop~ taxes. 

For the first time in State history, we have a law - not an id~a, not 
a plan, not a suggestion, but a law - that will cut school prop­
erty taxes for every homeowner in every community of New 
York State. 

Under this law, taxp~yers in New York will begin to see their 
property taxes drop by an average of 27%. 

That's a big tax cut, and our people deserve it. 

But knowing, as we do, that school property taxes hurt the eld­
erly especially hard, we wrote the law so our seniors would get 
an even bigger tax cut phased in over four years. 

43 



It's a great law. I want to thank you for passing it. I also want 
you to change it. 

This year, I will propose amending the law so our seniors get the 
entire cut this year. 

Which means that by the end of this year, the average senior QJ!;~ 
in New York will get a school property tax cut of AT LEAST 45%. 

This passage has a very high realism score, 2.4 standard deviations 
abuv~ th~ mean fur 20,000 segmenls of political texts in Diction's data 
bank. The passage deals with the practical, immediate consequences of 
taxes and tax cuts, and the governor's very concrete plan for reducing 
tax burdens on particular people. There is very little reference to ab­
stract concepts or technical topics. There is nothing in this passage that 
is beyond the immediate experience of a relatively disengaged voter. 

The speech with the segments having the lowest realism score in the 
1998 data set was delivered by Governor Fob James, Republican of Ala­
bama. The following segment of the speech had the lowest realism score 
of the six text segments in the speech. It was 1.99 standard deviations 
below the mean for the 20,000 segments of political texts in Diction's data 
bank. The principal rea:SUll for lhis segmenl's low realism score is the 
length of the words that comprise it. Diction uses the average word length 
in a segment of a text as a measure of "complexity." The average word in 
this passage was 5.17 letters long, 1.85 standard deviations more than 
the length of the average word in the segments in Diction's data bank. 
All words of eight letters or more are underlined . 

... business, health, and labor will be established to ensure wise 
use of funds. 

Secondly, because £!gri-business is a cornerstone of our economy 
and industries such as Charoen Pokphand, a new poultry pro­
ce:s:sing .!:!peraliun elnploying 1,500 people in Barbour and sur­
rounding counties, need research support, I propose $52 million 
to provide animal and poultry diagnostic laboratories, agricul­
tural and forestry research, and instructional and research facili­
ties for veterinary medicine. 

Thinlly, $10 million La provide adequate facilities for ~Y9~;m, 
training, and research in the forensic sciences, a major compo­
nent in solving criminal cases. 

Finally, $300 million to provide capital improvements for public 
institutions of higher education. 

Education is more than an ideaL Thomas Iefferson wrote, "The 

44 



ultimate result of the whole scheme of education would be the 
teaching of all children of the state reading, writing, and com­
mon arithmetic." Together, as parents, grandparents, educators 
and lawmakers, let us now take the necessary steps to make 
Alabama's public education system second to none. 

Iefferson also founded the University of Virginia and said it would 
be "based on the unlimited freedom of the human mind, to ex­
plore and to expose every subject susceptible of jts contempla­
tion." We would do well to adopt his vision for our very own. 

In my General Fund proposaL I again spr­

vices. Last year as part of our Children's Initiative, I requested 
an additional $5 million for Foster Family Enhancements, but 
you E!Ppropriated only $1 million. I again ask you to support a 
$5 million E!ppropriation for foster children. 

I propose a $10 million .appropriation to fund the Children's 
Health Program to provide coverag~ for an estimated 
50,000 children, and an $8 million increase to Youth Services for 
S!4@1Q1:!:ill private placements. In total, I am requesting over 30 
million new dollars for children's initiatives. 

We have increased the ranks of Public Safety by over 200 troopers. 

We have increased our prison capacity by over 3,000 inmates to 
ensure no criminal who should be locked up will be set free. 

For three years we have run state government and increased 
funding for children, for prisons, for law enforcement, and for 
Medicaid but with no new taxes and very little growth in 
General Fund revenue. We did this primarily with a freeze on 
hiring that through attrition reduced the number of state em­
ployees from 39,000 in December of 1994 to 35,000 in December 
of 1997, reducing payroll costs by £!pproximately $100 million. 

Cabinet members and state employees have worked hard to cut 
expenses in purchasing, contracting, communications, and travel 
and I thank them for making state government more rlf@lli, 
and for saving the taxpE!yer millions of dollars. (Mr. Main - Mr. 
Baker- Cabinet) 

T proposp ;:m 8°/., prly TrllSP for stMe employees funded from sav­
ings created by two early retirement plans. Therefore, the pay 
raise and early ~slation should be tied together. 

I have said before and I say again, honest government begins with 
honest elections. You passed our absentee ballot law last year, 

45 



In this segment, the governor is providing a fairly detailed discussion 
of his policy agenda. It mentions specific programs, such as Foster Fam­
ily Enhancements, that may be of great interest to certain legislators and 
a small number of citizens but are of very low general salience. A few of 
the long words in this segment, such as "susceptible" are highly abstract, 
and might be used by governors who wished to place their agendas in 
an ideological context. 

Table 1 presents the realism scores for the 41 speeches in the 1998 data 
set. A quick inspection of this table suggests that there are two distinct 
types of rhetoric coming from Republican governors. Republicans from 
the Northeast had the four highest realism scores. Republicans from the 
South and West had the five lowest realism scores. 

Table 1 

Realism Scores, 1998 Speeches 

State Governor, Party Realism Score 

New York Pataki, R 53.6 

Rhode Island Almond, R 53.5 

New Jersey Whitman, R 53.1 

Pennsylvania Ridge, R 52.7 

New Hampshire Shaheen, D 52.5 

Massachusetts Cellucci,R 52.4 

Florida Chiles, D 52.2 

South Carolina Beasley, R 52.0 

Minnesota Carlson, R 52.0 

Washington Lowry, D 51.8 

Colorado Roemer, D 51.6 

New Mexico Johnson, R 51.6 

Vermont Dean, D 51.5 

WiscunsiIl TholllPSOll, R 51.5 

West Virgnina Underwood, R 51.5 

Mississippi Fordice, R 51.5 

Georgia Miller, D 51.5 

Missouri Carnahan, D 51.5 

46 



Table 1- Continued 

State Governor, Party Realism Score 

Oregon Kitzhaber, D 51.5 

Utah Leavitt, R 51.4 

Indiana O'Bannon, D 51.4 

Virginia Gilmore, R 51.3 

South Dakota Janklow, R 51.3 

Kentucky Patton,D 51.2 

Connecticut Rowland, R 51.2 

Maine King, I 51.1 

Iowa Branstad, R 51.0 

Delaware Carper, D 50.7 

Hawaii Cayetano, D 50.6 

Illinois Edgar, R 50.5 

Michigan Engler, R 50.1 

Tennessee Sundquist, R 49.9 

Oklahoma Keating, R 49.7 

California Wilson,R 49.7 

North Dakota Schafer, R 49.6 

Alaska Knowles, D 49.5 

Ohio Voinovich, R 49.5 

Maryland Glendening, D 49.4 

Kansas Graves, R 48.5 

Arizona Hull, R 48.5 

Wyoming Geringer, R 47.7 

Idaho Batt,R 47.7 

Alabama James, R 47.5 

Table 2 presents the realism scores for the speeches in the 1991 data 
set. Except for Governor Symington, Republican of Arizona, the five 
most realistic as well as the four least realistic governors were Demo­
crats. There was no clear regional pattern. 

47 



Table 2 

Realism Scores, 1991 Speeches 

State Governor, Party Realism Score 
Arizona Symington, R 54.4 
Washington Gardner, D 5J.7 

Arkansas Clinton, D 53.6 
Kentucky Wilkinson, D 53.0 
West Virginia Caperton, D 52.9 
New York Cuomo, D 52.7 
Alaska Hickel, I 52.2 
Oregon Roberts, D 51.6 
Maryland Schaefer, D 51.1 
Pennsylvania Casey, D 51.0 
Mississippi Mabus, D 51.0 
Texas Richards, D 51.0 
New Mexico King, D 50.9 
lennessee McWherter, LJ 5U.~ 

South Carolina Campbell, R 50.5 
Rhode Island Sundlum, D 50.4 
Oklahoma Walters, D 50.3 
Connecticut Weicker, I 50.1 
Maine McKernan, R 50.0 
South Dakota Mickelson, R 50.0 
Hawaii Waihee, D 49.9 
Delaware Castle, R 49.8 
AlahtJma Hunt, R 49.6 

Utah Bangerter, R 49.5 
Indiana Bayh,D 49.3 
New Hampshire Gregg, R 49.2 
Kansas Finney, D 49.2 
North Carolina Martin, R 48.8 
Missouri Ashcroft, R 48.7 
Virginia Wilder, D 48.0 
Vermont Dean, D 47.5 
North Dakota Sinner, D 47.4 
Wyoming Sullivan, D 47.3 

48 



Table 3 presents the estimate of OLS regression equations for the 1991 
and 1998 data sets. The negative findings are worth noting. Realism is 
not systematically related to political party, economic growth, per capita 
income, public extremism, or the interaction of gubernatorial political 
inexperience and divided government. Contrary to expectations, gover­
nors of states with individualistic political cultures used rhetoric that 
had consistently (although not always Significantly) less realism than that 
of governors of moralistic and traditionalistic states. 

Table 3 

Predicting Realism in 1991 and 1998 State-of-the-State 
Speeches from Situational Variables (beta weights) 

Variable 1991 

Change in total state personal income, 
previous year .107 

Democratic governor -.103 

Per capita income, previous year -.319 

Traditionalistic political culture .635** 

Moralistic political culture .127 

Public's liberalism .853** 

Public's extremism .228 

Governors without political 
inexperience, divided government .053 

W, adj R2 

F; df; p 

.482, .294 

2.56; 8, 22; .038 

p < .10, ** P < .05, *** P < .001 

1998 

-.122 

.220 

.231 

.168 

.087 

.419* 

.124 

.271 

.337, .171 

2.03; 8, 32; .074 

Only one explanatory variable had a large and statistically significant 
effect in both data sets: public liberalism. The more liberal the public of 
a governor's state is, the more realistic the governor's rhetoric is. Unlike 
traditionalistic political culture, which had a statistically significant ef­
feet in 1991 but not in 1998, the effect of public liberdlism held (or lwo 
entirely different sets of governors. 

There are several possible explanations for this finding. It could be 
that governors of liberal states are more interested in mobilizing voters 

49 



with low levels of education than are governors of conservative states. 
On the other hand, it could be that the public's conservatism is the active 
influence. Perhaps conservative public attitudes influence gubernato­
rial rhetoric by making it less concerned with "tangible, immediate, ev­
eryday matters that affect people's everyday lives." The public in con­
servative states could be holding out against what Francis Fukuyama 
(1992) calls "the end of history," which replaces the complex, abstract 
political discourse of ideological struggles with the practical political 
discourse of tax cuts, jobs, and day care. Another possibility is that con­
servative governors of conservative states are discussing policy issues at 
a fairly technical level in the public setting of a state-of-the-state speech 
in order to wrest control of poHcymaking away from specialists who com­
prise state agencies. Conservative governors may perceive these indi­
viduals to be generally opposed to their agendas. 

A more detailed assessment of the messages conveyed when guber­
natorial realism is high along with a deeper probing of the content of 
conservative attitudes and the paths through which they influence elite 
rheturil: wuuld help u~ tu wlden,taml the links at work between rheturi­
cal situations and the rhetorical/ political strategies that governors adopt 
in response to them. 

References 

Beyle, Thad L. 1992. Governors and Hard Times. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. 
Bitzer, Lloyd F. 1968. "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric I, no. 1 

Uanuary): 1-14. 
DiLeo, Daniel. 1997. "Dynamic Representation in the American States: Effects 

of Public Mood on Governors' Agendas." State and Local Government Review 
29, no. 2 (Spring): 98-109. 

Elazar, Daniel J. 1994. The American Mosaic: The Impact afSpace, Time, and Culture 
on American Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview. 

Erikson, Robert S., Gerald C. Wright, and John P. Mclver. 1993. Statehouse De­
mocracy: Public Opinion and Policy in the American States. New York: Cam­
bridge. 

Ferguson, Margaret R. 1996. "Gubernatorial Leadership in the Fifty States." Paper 
presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Associa­
tion, San francisco, August 29, 1996. 

Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Avon. 
Gosling, James J. 1991. "Patterns of Stability and Change in Gubernatorial Policy 

Agendas." State and Local Government Review. 23, no. 1 (Spring): 3-12. 
Hart Roderick P. 1997. Diction 4.0: A Text Analysis Program. Thousand Oaks, 

CA: Scolari. 
Hart, Roderick P. 1971. liThe Rhetoric of the Tru.e Believer." Communication 

Monographs 38: 249-26l. 
U.S. Department of Commerce. 1991. Statistical Abstract of the United States: The 

National Data Book. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce. 

50 



U.S. Department of Commerce. 1992. Statistical Abstract of the United States: The 
National Data Book. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce. 

U.S. Department of Commerce. 1998. Statistical Abstract of the United States: The 
National Data Book. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce. 

Van Assendelft, Laura. 1997. Governors, Agenda Setting, and Divided Government. 
Lanham, MD: University Press of America. 

Appendix 

Computation of Realism Scores by Diction 

The following is a summary of the explanation provided in the user's manual 
for Diction, entitled Diction 4.0: The Text Analysis Program by Roderick P. Hart, 
1997. The full explanation appears on pages 49-50. 

Realism is defined as the used of words indicating concern with tangible, 
immediate, recognizable matters that affect the everyday lives of most people. 
The score is calculated by summing z-scores of frequencies of words belonging 
to six different lists of words, or dictionaries, then subtracting the normalized 
frequency of words belonging to an eighth dictionary and subtracting a normal­
ized statistic based on the average length of the words in a text segment. 

The scores that Diction sums up in calculating realism belong to the following 
six dictionaries: 
1. Familiarity: a list of very common words, including prepositions such as in 
2. Spatial Awareness: words referring to location, specific places, types of places, 

distances. Some examples are abroad, over, Ceylon, county, east, latttude, map, 
kilometer, migrated. 

3. Temporal Awareness: words that can place an event in time or related to the 
significance of time in some way, such as century, mid-morning, postpone. 

4. Present Concern: composed from a list of present-tense verbs that relate to 
physical activity (cough, taste), social operations (touch, govern), and task per­
formance (make, cook). 

5. Human Interest: includes personal pronouns, family members, generic terms 
for people, such as friend, baby. 

6. Concreteness; a very large dictionary, referring to tangible ubjel:t::; ur per­
sons, such as peasants, African-Americans, carpenter, congressman, courthouse, 
store, television, wages, bicycle, eyes, insects, grain, oil, silk. 

Diction then subtracts a number that is a function of the average number of 
letters in the words in the text segment and a number based on the frequency of 
words belonging to a dictionary called "Past Concern." This dictionary consists 
of the past tense forms of the verbs belonging to the Present Concern dictionary. 

Diction places this composite of z-scores for each text segment on scale with a 
mean of 50 and a specified standard deviation that it computes from the realism 
scores of over 20,000 text segments from "political speeches, press conferences, 
patriotic ceremonies, diplomatic engagement1;," iimi uthl:!I public affdir::; lexLs 

(Hart 1997, 23). 

51