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Corpus Analysis of Syntactic and Lexical Structures in Donald Trump’s Speeches on COVID-19
Dalarna University, School of Language, Literatures and Learning.
2023 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the world and has become a hot topic in open debates and speeches among doctors and politicians. This research is a Political Discourse Analysis of speeches by Donald Trump on the Coronavirus and is based on theories and strategies in political discourse as defined by van Dijk (1997). This study consists of both quantitative and qualitative methods and focuses on the personal pronouns I and we, modal verbs, and verb forms. The main finding in this research is that Trump constantly aspired towards positive selfrepresentation, as is the primary idea in van Dijk’s theory of political persuasion. Trump speaks highly of himself, his team and America, and by expressing different syntactic styles, like personal pronouns, he can convey an underlying meaning to politically manipulate his audience. This study contributes to an understanding of how syntactic and lexical structures can have a persuasive effect and be used as a means by politicians to decide how they will be portrayed as leaders.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2023.
Keywords [en]
Donald Trump, COVID-19, Personal Pronouns, Modal Verbs, Verb Forms
National Category
General Language Studies and Linguistics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-45304OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-45304DiVA, id: diva2:1732145
Subject / course
English
Available from: 2023-01-30 Created: 2023-01-30

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • chicago-author-date
  • chicago-note-bibliography
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
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  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf