Rhetoric and President of United States Image Projection: An Analysis of the Inaugural Address Made by Donald

Abstract

Before taking office, every U.S. President delivers an inaugural address to the whole nation, which is a custom and tradition in the United States. Through this administration, the president articulates his mission and resolution in his term, and he also often uses the specific occasion to build up an image of responsibility and authority of himself in the hearts of the citizens. This paper aims to conduct a discourse and rhetorical analysis, using Donald Trump's 2017 inaugural address as the corpus, with the help of corpus analysis tool AntConc4.2.4 database for frequency analysis and detailed lexical presentation. The study explores how Donald used linguistic techniques to construct his nice presidential image during the inaugural address. Finally, the research finds that Donald, by employing Aristotle's rhetorical Appeal theory, successfully portrayed himself as a "high-ranking, diligent, people-loving, and guardian of the people" presidential figure.And also it aims to provide insights into how using language can influence and mobilize public opinion by studying Aristotle's rhetoric theory and Trump's inaugural speech. Additionally, it offers the researchers a successful example of the application of Aristotelian rhetorical appeals, enhancing the understanding of how presidential images are crafted and displayed in public speeches.