Donald Trump’s political campaign rhetoric. A cognitive study
Martyna Awier
University of Białystok, PolandMartyna Awier is a PhD student at the University of Białystok, Poland. Her academic interests are in the areas of cognitive linguistics and discourse studies. Her current research focuses on conceptual metaphors and Critical Discourse Analysis.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5371-8871
Résumé
Politicians recruit conceptual metaphors, as these means enable them to talk about abstract political problems in terms of more tangible and commonplace entities. This study aims to explore linguistic aspects of Trump’s presidential campaign and is conducted in light of premises derived from Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Metaphor Theory. The selected speeches were analyzed using a corpus research tool, i.e. Metaphor Identification Process was implemented. Donald Trump’s campaign speeches were retrieved from internet sources. The period from January 24th, 2015 to October 20th, 2016 was chosen for compiling the primary corpus of 20 speeches. The qualitative analysis indicates that the President used metaphorical expressions frequently. The author of the article enumerates some grand metaphorical themes underlying Donald Trump’s campaign speeches.
Mots-clés :
Donald Trump, campaign speeches, conceptual metaphor, MIP, discourseRéférences
Barczewska, S. 2017. Conceptualizing Evolution Education. A Corpus-Based Analysis of US Press Discourse. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Beard, A. 2000. The Language of Politics. London: Routledge.
Bloch, M. (ed.). 1975. Political Language and Oratory in Traditional Society. London/New York/San Francisco: Academic Press.
Cameron, L. 2010. The discourse dynamics framework for metaphor. In: L. Cameron & R. Maslen (eds.), Metaphor Analysis. Research Practice in Applied Linguistics, Social Sciences and the Humanities, 77-98. London, Oakville: Equinox.
Cap, P. 2008. Towards the proximization model of the analysis of legitimization in political discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 40: 17-41.
Charteris-Black, J. 2004. Corpus Approach to Critical Metaphor Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Charteris-Black, J. 2005. Corpus Politicians and Rhetoric. The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Chilton, P. & Lakoff, G. 1989. Foreign policy by metaphors. Center for Research in Language 3/5: 2-19.
Cienki, A. 2005. Metaphor in the ‘Strict Father’ and ‘Nurturant Parent’ cognitive models: Theoretical issues raised in an empirical study. Cognitive Linguistics 16: 279-312.
Deignan, A. 2005. Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Fabiszak, M. 2010. Vilification of the enemy: Different enemies, the same linguistic strategies. In: D. Stanulewicz, T. Wolański & J. Redzimska (eds.), Lingua Terra Cognita II: A Festschrift for Professor Roman Kalisz, 73-97. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego.
Fabiszak, M. & Konat, B. 2013. Zastosowanie korpusów językowych w językoznawstwie kognitywnym. In: P. Stalmaszczyk (ed.), Metodologie językoznawstwa. Ewolucja języka. Ewolucja teorii językoznawczych, 131-142. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego.
Gibbs, R. W. 2017. Metaphor Wars. Conceptual Metaphors in Human Life. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Górska, E. 2008. Four arguments for patterns of metaphorical thought. Acta Philologica 35: 15-31.
Górska, E. 2014. Dynamiczne podejście do metafory. Prace Filologiczne LXIV/2: 109-122.
Grey, W. 2000. Metaphor and meaning. Minerva 4: 1-8.
Lakoff, G. 2002. Moral Politics. How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G. 2004. Don’t Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate – The Essential Guide for Progressives. White River Junction. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company.
Lakoff, G. 2006. Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Lakoff, G. 2008. The neural theory of metaphor. In: R. Gibbs (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor, 17-38. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G. 2016a. How to help Trump. http://georgelakoff.com/2016/12/15/how-to-helptrump/ (2 May 2019).
Lakoff, G. 2016b. Understanding Trump’s use of language. http://georgelakoff.com/2016/08/19/understanding-trumps-use-of-language/ (2 May 2019).
Lakoff, G. 2017. The president is the nation: The central metaphor Trump lives By. http://georgelakoff.com/2017/08/01/the-president-is-the-nation-the-central-metaphor-trump-lives-by/ (2 May 2019).
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pragglejaz Group. 2007. MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol 22/1: 1-39.
Turner, M. 1994. Reading Minds: The Study of English in the Age of Cognitive Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Van Dijk, T. A. 1997. What is political discourse analysis? Belgian Journal of Linguistics 11: 11-52.
Wodak, R. 2009. Language and politics. In: J. Culpeper, F. Katamba, P. Kerswill, R. Wodak & T. McEnery (eds.), English Language: Description, Variation and Context. A definitive new textbook in English language, 577-592. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
University of Białystok, Poland
Martyna Awier is a PhD student at the University of Białystok, Poland. Her academic interests are in the areas of cognitive linguistics and discourse studies. Her current research focuses on conceptual metaphors and Critical Discourse Analysis.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5371-8871
