Mr. President, discourse matters: a contrastive analysis of Donald Trump and Barack Obama’s discourse

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Mr. President, discourse matters: a contrastive analysis of Donald Trump and Barack Obama's discourse

Ricardo Casan-Pitarch

Universidad Politecnica de Valencia

Abstract

Whether a person is depicted as a hero or a villain, his discourse can be representative of his personality; the way the audience is addressed or the type of used words can play a part in determining the public image of any individual. This paper is contextualized within the analysis of political language. The purpose of this research is to analyze the language forms used by the current president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, and his predecessor in the White House, Barack Obama, and as well to discuss how their linguistic discourse influences their public image in the field of politics. The method implemented in this research is based on the analysis of three main focal points: the amount of words and length of sentences, the morphological composition and the use of pronouns in their speeches. The corpus of this research consists of six speeches which are equivalent in pairs and delivered by each president in the same specific contexts: their presidential announcement, election night victory and inauguration speech. The results obtained in this research show some significant differences between the two presidents regarding the analyzed items and they seem to justify how they affect their public image. In conclusion, it seems that there are some reasons why each president is using or used a specific type of discourse, which is clearly addressing certain people, groups or classes that are willing to support their ideas and proposals.

Keywords: Discourse Analysis, Pronouns, Morphology, Syntax, Trump, Obama

СОПОСТАВИТЕЛЬНЫЙ АНАЛИЗ РЕЧЕЙ ДОНАЛЬДА ТРАМПА И БАРАКА ОБАМЫ

Рикардо Касань-Питарч

Речь всегда является репрезентацией личности каждого человека. То, как индивид обращается к аудитории и какие лексические единицы он использует, играет роль в определении его общественного имиджа. Представленная статья предлагает анализ лексико-грамматических средств в политическом дискурсе. Цель данного исследования - проанализировать языковые формы, которые отмечаются в речи Президента Соединенных Штатов Америки Дональда Трампа и его предшественника Барака Обамы, а также рассмотреть, как их речь влияет на их имидж политика. Метод, примененный в этом исследовании, основан на анализе трех основных позиций: 1) количество слов и длина предложений, 2) морфологический состав (композиция), а также 3) использование местоимений в их речи. В основу исследования легли шесть эквивалентных выступлений обоих Президентов в схожем контексте: обращение президента, речь при победе на выборах, инаугурационная речь. Результаты, полученные в ходе исследования, показывают значительную разницу между президентами с точки зрения анализируемого материала, а также подтверждают, что лексико-граматическое наполнение речей влияют на имидж политика. В заключение отметим, что есть несколько причин, по которым каждый Президент пользуется определенным типом дискурса для обращения к определенным классам и группам людей, готовых их поддержать.

Ключевые слова: дискурс-анализ, местоимения, морфология, синтаксис, Трамп, Обама grammatical political discourse

Introduction

In the last months the US elections has brought the attention of the global mass media and consequently of the public from the whole world. The influence of the US in the world is vastly significant since it is considered to be one of the world potential superpowers together with China and Russia. The decisions taken in any of these countries are crucial for the economy development in the rest of the world. Therefore, the departure and entrance of any new president as well as the election of one or another candidate is highly likely to bring certain changes in the economic field as well as in the environmental, social, and military ones.

The current panorama is that the democratic ex-president Barack Obama has abandoned the White House after eight years, whereas the new republican president Donald Trump has taken this empty throne after winning the latest US elections and will remain there at least for four years. In this occasion, the victory of president Trump seems to have created the abyss between his supporters and detractors bigger than ever. Near half of the Americans, seemingly those who voted for him, seem to be fully convinced with Trump's electoral promises and plans and they think he is the leader that America needs for real changes in politics. On the contrary, there is a group of active detractors among media and population who think the opposite and they are continuously carrying out public protests against the new US president since he was elected in November 2016.

In this sense, the information that daily appears in media seems to focus deliberately on responses taken by the president's detractors immediately after he announces any new actions to be performed or even after any post he publishes in social networks. Besides, it seems that all the decisions that the new president is taking are unpopular, polemic and very negative for America and the rest of the world. This attitude of media towards the republican president is creating a magnifying drama around him, depicting him as a villain. In contrast, it seems that the public image of his predecessor president Obama was generally more positive among Americans when he was first elected despite the fact that he also had his detractors from public and media as well. All in all, the interest awaken in the figure of president Trump is huge and media seems to be magnifying it before even having any results derived from his actions.

Despite Trump's victory in the US elections obtaining fewer votes than his democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, 46.1% and 48.2% respectively, continuous attacks in most media channels do not seem to go in hand with the support of nearly half of the Americans. In this sense, it is a general fact that any president or candidate in any country in the world creates opposition and disagreement among voters as well as in the media channels; however, the case of president Trump seems to be more sounded and criticized than any of his predecessors in the White House. After careful reading and compiling data from some speech scripts from both presidents Obama and Trump (presidential announcement, election night victory, and inauguration), this paper aims at analyzing and comparing the language forms and strategies used by both presidents as well as at discussing how their speech can suggest a public image of either a hero or a villain in the field of politics. Our research hypothesis is that the form of their discourses in terms of length, word categories and use of pronouns can influence positively or negatively the way they are perceived by general public and media. In this sense, it should be anticipated that the public image of Obama seems to be more positive among media and audience than the one of his successor. Before discussing the obtained results, a theoretical framework is introduced in which some background information from both Trump and Obama is used to set the scenario for the discourse analysis. To support this contrastive analysis, a section presenting some ideas about the importance of discourse in politics is introduced with the aim of supporting the conclusions derived from the obtained results.

Hero or villain: discourse matters

Despite the fact that narcissism is often viewed as something negative, some authors have suggested that it may also be advantageous (Brunell et al., 2008; Engelen, Neumann & Schmidt, 2016; Holtzman, & Strube, 2010; Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006). This lack of modesty could be an effective strategy to seek attention, promote oneself and increase self-esteem [Pfeffer 2015]. Rasking and Terry (1988) stated that some characteristics of narcissist people are being manipulative, imperious, vain, arrogant and self-sufficient. According to Pfeffer (2015), narcissist speakers are also likely to be good leaders and they can also move masses because they are established on a well-defined position, they promote an idea, and they strongly defend their arguments considering it the only acceptable one and attacking the opposite view. Deluga (1997) also appointed that a narcissist leader can be associated with charisma; and this may involve gaining support from the public.

In terms of discourse analysis, the use of personal pronouns is of relatively high interest to analyze how speakers distinguish between themselves and the others [Ortigues 1977]. In this sense, Rasking and Shaw (1988) considered that narcissist talk involves the use of the first singular person, denoting self-focus and egocentrism. The use of the first singular person can also emphasize the speakers' emotions in the speech, making the discourse more subjective and creating a sense of proximity and sympathy with the audience [Stigel 2001]. As a result, closeness to the audience is a strategy to create a circle of trust between the speaker and the audience [Saarien 2014]. In the field of political discourse, these ideas might imply that speakers performing narcissist discourse could be attempting to approach middle and lower social classes, convincing emotionally that someone is on their side [McColl-Kennedy & Anderson 2002].

Besides, all these features suggest that leaders using discourse with a narcissist tone could be linked to populism, which is a form of mass politics. The idea of populism is the act of representing ordinary people and masses and opposing elites and privileged groups: I-we vs. the enemy-they [Lafiti 2014]. Another advantage of political populism is that people tend to trust what other people say and consequently a part of them simply takes the decision of supporting a leader without meditating on other possible consequences or disadvantages. In the current century, populist discourse has been mainly driven with certain topics of interest concerning today's problems such as political corruption, social status and inequality, loss of identity and national values, among others. In this sense, Lafiti [Lafiti 2014] appoints that this type of discourse is often anti- theoretical and anti-intellectual and it is delivered by a charismatic and strong leader, not necessarily friendly. Such speakers argue other positions and can even threaten or show an intolerant attitude.

On the contrary, humble discourse is the opposite of a narcissist and populist one. Sometimes humble leaders are seen as weak because they do not show the expected strength like other leaders. Along history, leaders have been glorified and shown as heroes or idols [Morris, Brotheridge, & Urbanski 2005]. In this sense, Rost (1991, 94), leaders were said to have become "a savior like essence in a world that constantly needs saving". However, humble leadership has also some benefits. Collins (2001) thought that companies or organizations with humble leaders are sustained over longer periods of time even after they retire, and they often become and remain the benchmark of their sector. Besides, embarrassing conflicts such as mistresses, thefts or abuse of power do not seem to be connected with humble leaders.

Concerning language use, leaders using humble discourse tend to avoid egocentrism and `I-Talk', using the form `we' instead. Fortanet-Gomez (2004) stated that the use of the first person plural pronoun `we' implies the participation of all the members of a community, group or team and this reinforces the idea of unity above one single person. Beard (2000) thought that plural forms of the first person pronouns are also a strategy to share responsibility between the speaker and the others, delivering an image of union and team work. However, it should be noticed that the pronoun `we' can also imply both inclusion and exclusion, being a pronoun of solidarity as well as rejection: `we' as `I + my group' and `we' as `I + you' [Inigo-Mora 2004; Pennycook 1994].

Formal vs. Informal Discourse

Formality is a type of social deixis that defines the setting or social act in which the language is used [Crystal 1980; Levinson 1983]. In addition to this, Richards et al. (1997) defined formality as the language used in situations when the speaker is very careful about the choice of words and sentence structure. In this sense, formal language is characterized by the special attention paid to the form [Labov 1972]. Besides, there are different elements that can determine the formality of discourse such as discourse directness, morphology and syntax, or terminology (threatening and insults), among others.

In this case, the use of pronouns is also relevant because they avoid the repetition of nouns and makes discourse more cohesive and coherent. First of all, the personalization of the discourse with the first person is a characteristic of informality, especially `I-Talk' as it has been previously described. On the contrary, neutral forms denote certain indirectness and this is a form of formality [Yaguchi 2001]. According to Williamson (2006), the use of the second person pronouns involves directness; `you' means invocation and in some context this can be considered non-academic discourse. In words of O'Hair, Rubenstein & Stewart (2004) the second person pronouns should be avoided in formal contexts since this directness is a sign of rudeness and impoliteness in most countries. Furthermore, the function of `you' is to persuade rather than to inform by gaining the attention of the audience to take actions; thus it is a way of showing closeness with the audience [Ajayi & Balogun 2014; Jeon 2003]. Besides, the pronoun `you' tends to be used in familiar circles rather than in professional ones [Swick 2008].

In contrast to the second person pronouns, the third person ones do not directly refer to the speaker or the addressee but to other people or things that are not present at the moment of the speech [Casan-Pitarch 2016]. In fact, they are the opposite of the second person pronouns [Cornish 2005]. The function of the third person pronouns is quite varied, there are both singular and plural forms and they also distinguish male, female and neutral forms. As it was previously said, pronouns substitute nouns; so masculine and feminine pronouns substitute the person's proper name. However, in some situations, it may also be considered rude to overuse the third person pronouns instead of the person's proper name [Quirk et al. 2008]. By the way, the neutral singular form `it' refers to things and ideas, but it can also be used as an anticipatory subject. Carreon (2006) states that this pronoun is usually the most common one since it establishes both neutrality and anonymity. As a result, this neutral form avoids personalization and directness. At last, plural forms are considered what other subjects do, removing responsibility from the speaker and excluding them from the group [Pennycook 1994].

The second element that can also determine formality is morphology and syntax. Concerning how morphology can determine the level of a text or speech formality Heylighen and Dewaele (1999) differentiated between formal and informal elements. According to these authors, words can be context independent (formal) and context dependent or deictic (less formal). Formal categories are nouns, adjectives, prepositions and determiners; whereas pronouns, verbs, adverbs and interjections are deictic forms. Conjunctions are considered neutral. The difference between these two categories is that the independent forms do not require any previous reference to other concepts and they stand on their own whereas dependent forms need other words in order to understand their meaning. As a result, the use of one or another form has certain effect on the audience; in words of Heylighen and Dewaele (1999) the use of formal elements provide the message receivers with fewer chances to be misinterpreted. On the contrary, informal elements are more flexible and thus the message remains more ambiguous and subjective and the audience would take their own interpretations either favoring or disfavoring the communicator's message. Similarly, discourse syntax also has some influence on the audience. It shall be acknowledged that the standard forms of the language should be considered formal ones whereas those expressions which break with the language recipe grammar should be appointed as less formal. In this sense the order of words, the extension of sentences, or the use of verb forms can also have certain effects on the audience. According to Djafarova (2008), audiences are more easily attracted by short messages rather by long ones; in this sense, direct orders and short messages are far more effective than sentences built with more words than necessary. Besides, if the order of words is the standard (S+V+O/C), the flow of the information is more fluent and the message is transmitted more clearly and direct than in those cases in which the standard order is altered; this results in increasing the possibilities to be understood by the audience. At last, the use of imperative forms is a way of directness and it is connected to persuasion in the sense that the meaning of such messages and the requested action are more easily understood [Taufik, Tarjana, & Nurkamto 2014].

Methodology

As previously stated, the purpose of this research is to analyze and compare the language forms and strategies used by presidents Trump and Obama and consequently to discuss how they influence their public image in the field of politics, being considered either heroes or villains. This main objective is the basis for our hypothesis which questions if there is any evidence for the way presidents' discourse forms can influence public and media, and how it tells upon their image as political leaders. This research has been performed with a corpus formed by three speeches delivered by President Donald Trump and another three speeches by President Barack Obama. These six speeches are equivalent in pairs: presidential announcement, election night victory and inauguration speech. The total extension of this corpus was 16,438 words. There are three main focal points in this research, and they are related to the amount of words and sentences, morphological content and use of pronouns. In this sense, the quantification of samples for each category has required the use of software: Wordsmith and Taggant. The first, Wordsmith, was used to determine the extension of words and sentences as well as to carry out the analysis on the use of pronouns. On the other hand, the software Taggant will help us determine the morphological content of the corpus in this research. The analysis of this corpus has provided some relevant results that will help us to explain the findings in this research based on the previous literature review before coming to a conclusion that fulfills the main purpose of this research.

Results