HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES



COLLOCATION AS A LEXICAL COHENSIVE DEVICE

IN DONALD TRUMP’S SPEECH

FL4227 English Language Analysis

Class: 128639

Student: Nguyễn Thị Tuyết Chinh

Student ID: 20183046

Hanoi, January 2022

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
My assignment cannot be successfully completed without the support of these
following people. First of all, I would like to express and give my warmest thanks to my
teacher Mrs. Pham Thanh Tam who made this work possible. Her guidance and advice
carried me through all the stages of writing my project.

I would also like to thank my group members for letting my defense be an

enjoyable moment, and for your brilliant comments and suggestions, thanks to you.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................3

I. The theoretical background.............................................................................................................4

1. Lexical Cohesion.........................................................................................................................4

2. Lexical Collocation......................................................................................................................4

3. Types of lexical collocation.........................................................................................................4

II. The application and functions of lexical cohesion in Donald Trump’s Speech............................5

III. Conclusion...................................................................................................................................7

REFERENCES..................................................................................................................................7

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 INTRODUCTION
The study of collocation has been a great allure to researchers. According to Wallace
(1982, p.27) in Teaching Vocabulary, collocation is the most problematic part of lexical field.
Collocation has employed widely in various majors such as literature, politics, English
teaching, ect… However, there is a limit of research on the contribution of collocation in
lexical cohesion. In my essay, I only focus on analyzing the cohesive function of collocation
in Donald Trump’s Speech, which was obtained from the website www.vox.com. This website
includes a transcript of Donald Trump's speech, as well as other political material.

The rationale for selecting this topic is that it can aid in evaluating the coherence of
speech using linguistics. In addition, it indicates how an influential person employs the
linguistic partterns may impact the audience. Furthermore, Donald Trump is the 45 th President
of the United States and is one of the most powerful people in the world, thus his
interpretation in public speech sparks both pro-and contra view domestically and
internationally.

I. The theoretical background

1. Lexical Cohesion
The intructions of lexical cohesion from Halliday & Hasan (1994) are widely adapted.
It is a linguistic technique that aids in the creation of text and conversation cohesiveness.
Lexical cohesion, in contrast to grammatical cohesion, is the cohesive effect obtained by word
selection. Thus, lexical cohesion is created by a speaker or writer's selection of particular
lexical elements that are in some manner related to one another.
The term "cohesive signal" is used by Hasan and Halliday to describe lexical
cohesiveness. He also noted that authors were obligated to assist readers in constructing
coherence by using coherent signals. It implies that coherent chunks are the signals that
authors provide to their audience.
2. Lexical Collocation
Haliday & Hasan (1994) emphasized that lexical collocation is the relationship
between words that often co-occur. It is said to be the most challenging part amongst types of
lexical cohesion. Collocation refers to factual terms that exist in the same context or set of
words that are employed concurrently in one domain network. Furthermore, collocation,
unlike other cohesive lexical devices, is a text-bound relational cohesive device, meaning that

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some things tend to appear in the same semantic setting. Individual words tend to co-occur to
complement one another when we discuss many themes in the text, while others cannot. There
is no question that they contributed to the production of texts because of their semantic
relationships (Yifan, 2017).
3. Types of lexical collocation
Collocation is divided into two categories that are: related words (inclusive relation)
such as synonym, superordinate; and opposing pairings (exclusive relation) of various kinds,
such as complimentary and antonym, according to Salkie and Raphel (1995). Here are
examples:
(1) Why does this little boy wriggle all the time? Good boys don’t wriggle.

The sentences in (1) contains the words this little boy and boys, which are
superordinates, represent the inclusive relation cohesion in the text and they contribute to the
unity of the two sentences. Because the word boys does not expressly refer to that specific
young kid who wriggles all the time, little boy and boys do not have the same referent in this
case. Despite this, they continue to form a strong bond. Any instances of cohesiveness,
according to Halliday, are entirely lexical, a result of the co-occurrence of lexical words alone,
and not at all reliant on the connection of referent.

(2) Why does this little boy wriggle all the time? Girls don’t wriggle.

Words boy and girls are opposite and nor they have the same referent. Therefore, they
are in exclusive category of lexical collocation. Because there is a person is either a boy or a
girl when mentioning about things that are gender-specific to respect the difference between
the sex and gender. They are linked by a sort of opposite relation known as complementarity
in Lyons' categorization as well.

II. The application and functions of lexical cohesion in Donald Trump’s Speech.
Political speech is strongly connected to language, as researchers state that policy
content can not be illustated without the use of language (Chilton and Schäffner 1997, p.206,
cited in Dung Dang, 2020). Lexical collocation is considered as one of the most powerful tools
that assists politicians to make decisions, establish awareness of citizens, produce his/her own
discourse value or even control people’s behavior.

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 In this section, lexical collocation will be selectively analyzed from Donald Trump’s
Speech, which are Speech to the UN General Asssembly 2017, Statement on Syria Strikes and
2017 Boy Scout in Jamboree and based on Hasan and Halliday’s (1994) classifications.

(3) …We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions, or even systems of
government, but we do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties, to respect the
interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.
(Speech to the UN General Asssembly 2017)

In this datum, Trump included the words cultures and traditions, as well as
government and countries as the example of inclusive lexical collocation. According to
Oxford Dictionary (2009), the words used in this context, which are subordinates, are in the
same surrounding of religion. The word culture in the speech represents the condition of the
country's problem has a diversified culture. Similarly, the government and the nation shared a
relationship that allowed them to be classified into a single administration-related category.
Because the President delivered the speech, it is permissible to speak in terms of government.
In addition, as a representative of the country and a member of the United Nations, Trump
indicated that he did not expect any major community to have a similar culture or tradition, as
well as voiced the same attitude regarding the government system and nation.

(4) …The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production,
spread, and use of chemical weapons. I also have a message tonight for the two governments most
responsible for supporting, equipping, and financing the criminal Assad regime.
(Speech to the UN General Asssembly 2017)

The above quote also contains inclusive lexical collocations. In the categorization of
words, this is a pair of words that relate to each other or exist in the same context. The phrases
“production, spread, and use” and “supporting, equipping, and financing” come under the
heading of superordinate “funding”. Through these subordinates, the President Trump insisted
that Iran and Russia had to be held accountable for the mass slaughter in Syria, according to
the report. Russia and Iran are the countries that represent peace and dignity. Besides, these
phrases also create a linking effect that stresses the Assad regime's preventative or restraining
action in producing, disseminating, and employing chemical weapons and affirms the United
Nations' and other countries' strength and security contemporaneously.

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(5) …The evil and the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children, thrashing in
pain and gasping for air.
(Statement on Syria Strikes)
(6) …Finally — and we can’t forget these people — I especially want to salute the moms and the
dads and troop leaders who are here tonight.
(2017 Boy Scout in Jamboree)

In these data, inclusive and exclusive collocation do not appear seperately. They come
with each other to form cohesive relation for the text. Firstly, it is clear to point out inclusive
collocations in two sentences above, which are “mothers and fathers, infants and children”
(subordinate) vs “citizens” (superordinate) in the previous quote and “the moms and the dads
and troop leaders” (subordinate) vs “people” (superordinate). Exclusive collocations emerge
inside subordinate elements of inclusive collocation, which are mothers – fathers and the mom
– the dad. The phrases are diametrically opposed in two ways: first, a person is typically either
male or female; second, a person cannot be partially male or partially female when gender
category is considered. However, there is an ambiguity because these phrases do not have
absolute exclusive relation when they are put in “family” category. In that case, they might be
listed in inclusive collocation. As a result, the boundary between the two forms of lexical
cohesion discussed above is not apparent, and it is simple to become confusing. They do,
however, complement one other, generating the appearance of linking sentences with
sentences, paragraphs with paragraphs, and improving the text's persuasiveness.

III. Conclusion
The cohesive relationships using theory of Hasan and Halliday (1994) that are shared
throughout text components provide the hearer with a sense of closeness to the various parts of
the text. Two types of collocation discussed in this paper within Trump's political discourse
get the greatest knowledge of the text since their occurrence collaborates and constructs each
other to produce outcomes in a cohesive connection that gives a relavant cohesion to entire. In
short, collocation’s general role is to connect parental linkages of the text in order to provide
good cohesion within the text. Each of these types has a certain purpose. The reader can
achieve this goal by using his or her knowledge of the world to this particular topic of
discussion.

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 REFERENCES

Chilton and Schäffner as cited

by Dung Dang. (2020).
Grammatical Cohesion in
Political Discourse of
Vietnameese Newspaper and
English
Newspaper.International Journal
of Advanced Scientific
Research and
Management, Volume 5 Issue 2,
2 February 2020.DOI:
10.36282/IJASRM/
5.2.2020.1697
Chilton and Schäffner As cited by Dung Dang. (2020). Grammatical Cohesion in Political
Discourse of Vietnameese Newspaper and English Newspaper.International Journal of

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 Advanced Scientific Research and Management, Volume 5 Issue 2, 2 February
2020.DOI: 10.36282/IJASRM/5.2.2020.1697
Halliday and Hasan (1976). Cohesion in English.London: Longman.
J. Wallace. 1982. Teaching Vocabulary.London: Cambridge University Press.
Paltridge, B. (2012). Discourse Analysis: An Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury
Academic.
Renkema, Jan (1993). Discourse Studies: An Introduction Textbook. Amsterdam: John
Benjamin Publishing.
Salkie, Raphael (1995). Text and Discourse Analysis. New York: Taylor & Francis e-Library.