The study aimed to investigate how the language used in Donald Trump‟s Announcement Speech positions various actors. It not only attempted to reveal how the language used serves ideology and power but also how it provided a better understanding of the political purpose of the speech. Data was chosen from selected representative excerpts resident in Donald Trump‟s Announcement Speech. The study was oriented on the theoretical basis of Critical Discourse Analysis. It used Systemic Functional Linguistics as an adjunct theory and employs Fairclough‟s (1989, 2010) three tier model of description, interpretation and explanation for the analysis. The study approached qualitative research design. The findings shown that linguistic representation helped bring out power imbalance among the participants involved. Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Terrorists were portrayed as having the capacity to act upon the others while USA was cast as lacking the ability or capacity to perform certain duties or tasks. The study also shown that Donald Trump positions himself in the first place of the sentence with biggest emphasis, which, in my opinion, describes him as arrogant and divisive.
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The study aimed to investigate how the language used in Donald Trump‟s Announcement Speech positions various actors. It not only attempted to reveal how the language used serves ideology and power but also how it provided a better understanding of the political purpose of the speech. Data was chosen from selected representative excerpts resident in Donald Trump‟s Announcement Speech. The study was oriented on the theoretical basis of Critical Discourse Analysis. It used Systemic Functional Linguistics as an adjunct theory and employs Fairclough‟s (1989, 2010) three tier model of description, interpretation and explanation for the analysis. The study approached qualitative research design. The findings shown that linguistic representation helped bring out power imbalance among the participants involved. Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Terrorists were portrayed as having the capacity to act upon the others while USA was cast as lacking the ability or capacity to perform certain duties or tasks. The study also shown that Donald Trump positions himself in the first place of the sentence with biggest emphasis, which, in my opinion, describes him as arrogant and divisive.
