Lexico-semantic peculiarities of political

discourse on the example of Donald Trump

public speeches

Done by: Akilbekov M.Zh.

Introduction

 The aim of investigation is to study the political discourse, the speech picture of Donald Trump.
 The objects of research is Donald Trump`s speeches.
 The subjects of research is the political discourse, the speech picture of Donald Trump.
 The methods used in qualifying work: stylistic analysis, comparative analysis, lexical analysis,
functional analysis, analysis of non-verbal ways of influencing the audience used by the president
of the USA in his speeches, analysis of theoretical material and the use of the results in practice, a
descriptive method, contextual analysis, comparative analysis, discourse analysis method, the
practical part of the work; formal logic, analysis-synthesis, induction-deduction, classification - of
the theoretical part.
The concept of "discourse“and "political discourse"

 Discourse in the most common sense is a written or verbal product of a communicative action.
 The effectiveness of political discourse also depends on the tactics and strategies chosen by the
addressee. Often, the addressee plays the role of a manipulator in the dialogue, so it is who directs
his speech to the recipient, pursuing a goal. That is, it controls the direction of the dialogue. In
this case, argumentative discourse is widely used, since in this type of discourse the interlocutor
aims at persuading the listener to his side, and the ability to incline a person to his point of view
and achieve the desired result is a kind of skill.
 Political discourse, it can be concluded that they all have an ideology of political correctness and
are aimed at achieving political goals by manipulating the public’s consciousness, including in the
struggle for power.
The problem of manipulation of consciousness in American
political discourse

 Manipulation by the mass consciousness is one of the ways to control people by creating illusions or
conditions for controlling behavior.
 In the political discourse, there are many communicative technologies for the ideologization of mass
consciousness, but they all consider language as a means that can most fully, rationally embody the
speaker’s intention and most effectively realize his strategic goals.
Features of the American presidential discourse

 The entire political discourse is a space of meanings and meanings that carry encoded information about the
history of the development and formation of the institution of the presidency.
 Political expression serves as a means of expressing ideological attitudes and the ideological and political
position of a leader.
 The inaugural speech of the president is the first official programmatic speech of the newly elected head of
state to a multicultural audience, i.e. not only to the nation, but also to the rest of the world, its content, much
attention is traditionally paid.
 Inaugural speeches appeal to national pride, patriotism and high moral feelings of people, using precedent`s
texts, as well as concepts embedded in national consciousness.
Linguistic realities in political discourse

 role ideas;
 paraphernalia: a) parameters of an ideal image supporting a role-playing idea (originality,
determination, empathy, sincerity, sociability, charisma); b) accessories - a variety of details that
complement the main thing and accentuate any side of it (stereotypical: appearance in the broad sense
of the word, including gait, gestures, facial expressions and manner of dressing; symbolic, ideological);
c) entourage - environment (family, pets, hobbies);
 a model of behavior of a political leader, which is built as a combination of certain communicative
actions: ascertaining (the goal is to state facts about the objective world); actions of expressive self-
image (the goal is the expression of intentions, feelings, experiences of the actor); regulatory (function -
the establishment of interpersonal relationships based on norms, conventions adopted by people).
Speech portrait of the president of the USA

 Donald Trump erases the border between himself as a candidate and the people. He addresses them as
close people, saying that he is ready to share his thoughts with them: "I'd like to share my thoughts
about the stakes in this election“
 He often uses positive epithets, using lexical repetition: "We are going to make America rich again".
"We are going to make America safe again". "We are going to make America great again".
 He further criticizes his opponent, Hillary Clinton, who is a member of the Democratic Party:"Hillary
Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and theft".
Lexico-semantic features of the language of emotional response in
expressions

 An important element worth noting how often the following speech uses the pronoun we and its
derivatives us and our. For example, in the following statements: We remember and mourn those nearly
3,000 innocent people...; Our NATO allies; The recent attack on Manchester in the United Kingdom
demonstrates the depths of the evil we face with terrorism.
 American president openly admires the new NATO headquarters in Brussels, saying the following: I
never asked once what the new NATO Headquarters cost. I refuse to do that. But it is beautiful.
Peculiarities of the political discourse of Donald Trump
based on the Twitter social network

 Donald Trump actively uses capital letters, as well as colloquial vocabulary: 'The President of Taiwan
CALLED ME today to wish congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!
 Trump often gives an assessment to various representatives of public and public activities: Has anyone
looked at the really poor numbers of @VanityFair Magazine. Way down, big trouble, dead! Graydon
Carter, no talent, will be out!
 Donald Trump often compares himself with his opponents, thereby emphasizing his hard work and
superiority: 'Romney called to congratulate me on the Presidency. Very nice!
 Trump, despite his status, is actively making contact with celebrities, giving them personal advice and
evaluating their actions in public: Meryl Streep, one of the most over­rated actresses in Hollywood,
doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a ....
Obscene vocabulary in political discourse in Trump`s debate
speeches

 Speaking about oil prices in Saudi Arabia, Trump uses the fucking lexeme, which breaks the standing
ovation: They want to go in and raise the price for oil. Because we have nobody in Washington who
would feed back and said: you are not going to raise that fuckingpriceyou understandme?
 D. Trump implements the speaker's illocutionary rule, i.e. he declares his dominant position: In China
and other countries they just burn whatever the hell is available and that smoke is spreading out of
those chimneys and those factories are cheap as hell and they don't give a shit.
 At a meeting on the postponement of the deportation of smuggled children, Donald Trump states: Why
do we want all these people from asshole countries here?
Analysis of publications on the campaign of
Donald Trump

 Journalists call Trump's campaign nasty, and the candidate himself vile: What a fitting coda for such an
ugly campaign, and for such a, pardon the phrase, nasty man.
 D. Trump is compared with an erupting volcano: Donald Trump erupted at 6:30 p.m. local time. And
6:34. And 6:48. And 6:52. And 6:54. And then, at 7:06, the crater blew off, leaving a gaping caldera
where Trump's presidential campaign once stood.
 Trump is compared not only with other political businessmen and leaders, but even with book
characters and writers: Donald Trump, 'dictator-in-waiting‘.
Presidential political discourse as a means of manipulation

 Anaphora and parallel structures are often used: Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Sorry to
keep you waiting. Complicated business. Complicated. Thank you very much.
 The most frequent in the public appeals are adjectives expressing an assessment: Fantastic guy.
Fantastic family.
 When mentioning the past, a lowering strategy is used: We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back
our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.
 A special role in enhancing the manipulative influence is played by the slogans with the help of which
promises are expressed: We must choose to Believe In America; We will follow two simple rules: Buy
American and hire American.
Conclusions

 In Donald Trump’s inaugural speech, the most commonly used syntactic means of expression are repetitions
and syntactic parallelism, which give the speech a rhythm, connectedness, colorfulness, and emotionality.
 In the speech of D. Trump, there are often observed invective speech acts, which serve to express and affirm
the pragmatic basis of his actions in the political arena in order to demonstrate his dominance.
 The development of the image of a political leader is largely dependent on media resources. At the same
time, the role of the media in society is so great that their influence on the mass consciousness cannot be
underestimated.
 The analysis of thank-you speech, victorious speech and D. Trump's inaugural address revealed the use of
discursive manipulative strategies, manipulative markers, numerous repetitions, calls for joint actions, the
use of “unifying vocabulary”, slogans, inversions.
 Presidential political discourse is an effective means of manipulating the consciousness of a nation and
shaping its worldview. There is no doubt that research in this direction should be continued, since the role of
manipulative influence in political communication is constantly growing.
Thanks for attention!