Linguistic Inquiries Into Donald Trump’s Language : From 'Fake News' to 'Tremendous Success'

From an abundance of intensifiers to frequent repetition and parallelisms, Donald Trump's idiolect is highly distinctive from that of other politicians and previous Presidents of the United States. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, this book identifies the characteristic features of Trump's language and argues that his speech style, often sensationalized by the media, differs from the usual political rhetoric on more levels than is immediately apparent. Chapters examine Trump's tweets, inaugural address, political speeches, interviews, and presidential debates, revealing populist language traits that establish his idiolect as a direct reflection of changing social and political norms. The authors scrutinize Trump's conspicuous use of nicknames, the definite article, and conceptual metaphors as strategies of othering and antagonising his opponents. They further shed light on Trump's fake news agenda and his mutation of the conventional political apology which are strategically implemented for a political purpose. Drawing on methods from corpus linguistics, conversation analysis, and critical discourse analysis, this book provides a multifaceted investigation of Trump's language use and addresses essential questions about Trump as a political phenomenon. Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 6 Illustrations 8 Acknowledgments 11 Chapter 1: From Fake News to Tremendous Success: Introduction 12 Part I: Rhetoric and Repetition 26 Chapter 2: It’s Just Words, Folks. It’s Just Words: Donald Trump’s Distinctive Linguistic Style 28 Chapter 3: I Know Words, I Have the Best Words: Repetitions, Parallelisms, and Matters of (In)Coherence 52 Chapter 4: A Man who Was Just an Incredible Man, an Incredible Man: Age Factors and Coherence in Donald Trump’s Spontaneous Speech 73 Part II: Evaluation and Emotion 96 Chapter 5: Very Emotional, Totally Conservative, and Somewhat All over the Place: An Analysis of Intensifiers in Donald Trump’s Speech 98 Chapter 6: Crooked Hillary, Lyin’ Ted, and Failing New York Times: Nicknames in Donald Trump’s Tweets 120 Chapter 7: I’m Doing Great with the Hispanics.Nobody Knows It: The Distancing Effect of Donald Trump’s the-Plurals 141 Part III: Discourse and Metaphor 164 Chapter 8: Either We WIN this Election, or We Are Going to LOSE this Country!: Trump’s Warlike Competition Metaphor 166 Chapter 9: Silence and Denial: Trump’s Discourse on the Environment 184 Chapter 10: Donald Trump’s “Fake News” Agenda: A Pragmatic Account of Rhetorical Delegitimization 207 Chapter 11: Sorry Not Sorry: Political Apology in the Age of Trump 226 Part IV: Conclusion 244 Chapter 12: Great Movement versus Crooked Opponents: Is Donald Trump’s Language Populist? 246 Contributors 262 Index 265 "From an abundance of intensifiers to frequent repetition and parallelisms, Donald Trump's idiolect is highly distinctive from that of other politicians and previous Presidents of the United States. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, this book identifies the characteristic features of Trump's language and argues that his speech style, often sensationalized by the media, differs from the usual political rhetoric on more levels than is immediately apparent. Chapters examine Trump's tweets, inaugural address, political speeches, interviews, and presidential debates, revealing populist language traits that establish his idiolect as a direct reflection of changing social and political norms. Also scrutinize Trump's conspicuous use of nicknames, the definite article, and conceptual metaphors as strategies of othering and antagonising his opponents. They further shed light on Trump's fake news agenda and his mutation of the conventional political apology which are strategically implemented for a political purpose. Drawing on methods from corpus linguistics, conversation analysis, and critical discourse analysis, this book provides a multifaceted investigation of Trump's language use and addresses essential questions about Trump as a political phenomenon."-- Page 4 de la couverture "From short paratactic sentences to frequent repetition and parallelisms, Donald Trump's idiolect is highly distinctive from that of previous Presidents of the USA. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, this book identifies the characteristic features of Trump's language and argues that his speech style, often underestimated by the media, is strategically implemented as a persuasive device. The chapters examine Trump's tweets, inaugural address, political speeches, interviews, presidential debates and reality TV appearances, revealing populist language traits that establish his idiolect as a direct reflection of changing social and political norms. Also scrutinised is Trump's deviant use of nicknames, the definite article and conceptual metaphors as strategies of othering and antagonising his opponents, which is tailored to a specific political purpose. Drawing on techniques from corpus linguistics, multimodality and critical discourse analysis, this book provides a multifaceted investigation of Trump's language use and addresses essential questions about Trump as a political phenomenon"-- Provided by publisher "From short paratactic sentences to frequent repetition and parallelisms, Donald Trump's idiolect is highly distinctive from that of previous Presidents of the USA. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, this book identifies the characteristic features of Trump's language and argues that his speech style, often underestimated by the media, is strategically implemented as a persuasive device. The chapters examine Trump's tweets, inaugural address, political speeches, interviews, presidential debates and reality TV appearances, revealing populist language traits that establish his idiolect as a direct reflection of changing social and political norms. Also scrutinised is Trump's deviant use of nicknames, the definite article and conceptual metaphors as strategies of othering and antagonising his opponents, which is tailored to a specific political purpose. Drawing on techniques from corpus linguistics, multimodality and critical discourse analysis, this book provides a multifaceted investigation of Trump's language use and addresses essential questions about Trump as a political phenomenon"-- Résumé de l'éditeur