A linguistic analysis of the first official speeches in office of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump

Dossier / Travail de Séminaire , 2020 , 19 Pages , Note: 2,0

Philologie Anglaise - Linguistique

Johnson and Trump held their first official speeches in office under different circumstances. But both of them had the same goal:
Convincing the people to follow them. How did they do that? Which rhetoric devices did they use and how did they differ?

Politicians need to convince people to elect them, if they want to be successful. Nowadays there are various channels through which to reach potential followers, all of which have one thing in common: they use language to communicate. The possibilities vary from written texts published through different online media channels to podcasts and official speeches made in public and with press attendance. One presentation of a speech that is always highly attended is usually the first one given after a head of state is elected. Prior to this, during an election campaign, politicians need to convince a certain number of people in order to win the election. After the politician is elected, everybody, even those who voted for someone else, listen to the new leader of a country to figure out what this election could bring about.

Table of Contents

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Material and Method
2.1 Material
2.2 Method

3. Linguistic features used by both speakers
3.1 Formal acts and their meaning
3.2 Metaphors
3.3 Appealing to feelings
3.4 The rule of three
3.5 Hyperboles
3.6 Modality
3.7 Personal pronouns
3.8 Populism

4. Conclusion

5. Works cited

• Université: Bielefeld University (LiLi Fakultät)
• Cours: Language&Power
• Note: 2,0
• Auteur: Robert Cramer (Auteur)
• Année de publication: 2020
• Pages: 19
• N° de catalogue: V916683
• ISBN (ebook): 9783346234902
• ISBN (Livre): 9783346234919
• Langue: allemand
• mots-clé: Johnson, Trump, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Twitter, Linguistic, Linguistics, Speech, Analysis, English, language, school, USA, Linguistic analysis, speech analysis