Self-representation in political campaign talk: A functional metadiscourse approach to self-mentions in televised presidential debates

Abstract

Self-mentions (i.e., first person pronouns and self-citations) have proven to be one of the most powerful ways of rhetorical self-projection in academic discourse and their role in the construction of a self that engenders credibility in more overtly persuasive genres, such as political debates, has been extensively studied, given the vast literature on pronouns in political discourse analysis and specifically on their uses in political debates. To gain a better insight into the ways in which politicians can build a credible ethos through a competent and authoritative presentation of themselves in electoral debates, this paper compares the frequency and rhetorical roles of the self-mentions used by the candidates of the two major political parties (i.e., Democrats and Republicans) during the debates held for the United States presidential election of 2016. The Republican candidates (i.e., Trump and Pence) were found to make a notably greater use of self-mentions than their Democratic counterparts (i.e., Clinton and Kaine). Significant differences were also found in the rhetorical roles most commonly adopted by each politician to convey authority through the use of exclusive pronouns and self-citations.