Communicative Strategies in Political Speech of Donald Trump

Abstract

The article deals with the linguistic and communicative peculiarities of the political discourse of Donald Trump, a presidential candidate in the USA. The focus is on the communicative strategies and tactics, used by the politician in his speech during the election campaign. The attention is paid to language means through which a particular communicative strategy or tactic is realized. Each communicative strategy is seen as a combination of language actions aimed at solving the general communicative task of a speaker. The achievement of such a task is possible only by using certain communication tactics. The strategy intends a combination of speech actions whereas a tactic describes peculiar speech actions that aim to influence listeners at a certain stage of communication. Tactics are dynamic, their change happens promptly throughout the communication process, which provides the flexibility of the chosen strategy. The usage of communicative strategies and tactics depends on the type of discourse. Political discourse is defined as a communicative act in which participants give specific meanings to facts and influence and persuade the listeners. Political speech is a public speech that is addressed to the audience in order to demonstrate the leadership of the speaker and influence the listeners. Communicative strategies used in political speech aim at the realization of the final aim of communication. They are focused on the future and are connected with the forecasting of the situation, that is why their sources should be searched in motives that determine human activity. Donald Trump's goal is to persuade the listeners to vote for him, that is why he delivers his speech using various communicative strategies that increase his chances of winning.