Abstract
The current research is devoted to the comparative and contrastive analysis of Donald Trump’s victory and inaugural speeches. Its objective is to identify their similarities and differences from the functional and linguistic points of view. The research consists of several stages. First, the two genres of discourse in question are defined. Then, an overview of their functions is provided. Next, the linguistic means of performing them are analyzed. The results of the research indicate that, due to their main goals, the genres in question express certain functions, which can be verbally expressed in various ways: in Trump’s victory speech the inspirative function comes to the fore, while in his inaugural address the integrative and the performative functions dominate the other ones. Furthermore, in each case linguistic peculiarities correlate with the functions: in the victory speech the focus is on the ‘greatness’ of everything and everyone, whereas in the inaugural speech words connected with patriotism prevail, which is expressed mostly by means of personal pronouns. The results of the current research may function as a basis for further analysis of the genre of the victory speech, as it has not received enough scholarly attention yet, and of the peculiarities of Donald Trump’s political discourse.
Highlights
Political discourse has been the center of everyone’s attention for decades
Political discourse rather often becomes a tool for manipulating people (Fairclough, 1989; CharterisBlack, 2005), expressing dominance or discrimination, and persuading and influencing people’s opinion (Baranov, & Kazakevich, 1991; Berezhnaya, 1986; Golodnov, 2008), which is why the identification and the definition of such methods of influence has gained special importance in modern linguistics
Political discourse is presented by a diversity of genres (Chudinov, 2011)
Summary
Political discourse has been the center of everyone’s attention for decades. This may be explained by the fact that politics plays a crucial role in people’s lives: the future of countries and the relations between them depend greatly on politicians’ decisions. Political discourse rather often becomes a tool for manipulating people (Fairclough, 1989; CharterisBlack, 2005), expressing dominance or discrimination (van Dijk, 2013; Blackledge, 2005), and persuading and influencing people’s opinion (Baranov, & Kazakevich, 1991; Berezhnaya, 1986; Golodnov, 2008), which is why the identification and the definition of such methods of influence has gained special importance in modern linguistics This can be one of the reasons why, at present, several refereed journals publish research in this area (Discourse and Society; Journal of Language and Politics; Discourse, Context & Media; and others). The two genres of political discourse relevant to the current research are the victory speech and the inaugural speech Both of them are similar to what Aristoteles called ‘epideictic rhetoric’. The main purposes of the victory speech are expressing gratitude to all those who have supported the candidate throughout the campaign and those who voted for him/her; reminding people of the key ideas of the presidential campaign, picturing the bright future ahead (Chanturidze, 2014); and displaying emotions aroused by the event (Gornostayeva, 2018; Lara, Márquez, & Fuentes-Rodríguez, 2016, p. 130)
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