Tracking Trump. An Anthropolinguistic Study of Discourse Practice and Political Persona
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DOI: 10.21008/b.978-83-7775-760-4
The monograph entitled Tracking Trump. An Anthropolinguistic Study of Discourse Practice and Political Persona constitutes an extremely valuable position among works dedicated to the dynamically developing, fertile, and immensely proliferating intersection of linguistics (sociolinguistics and pragmalinguistics), anthropology, ethnography, cultural studies, and communicology. A very appropriate choice of research topic in the person of the President of the USA, Donald Trump, one of the protagonists of international politics on a global scale, paradoxically highlights the central role of this research frontier in illuminating the profiles of individuals whose cultural–linguistic–communicative activities have (or had) left their mark on the shape of the contemporary world. This world, a purely human world of the full and inexhaustible wealth of various references, constitutes a cultural–linguistic–communicative universe, in which linguistic behaviours form ‘the core’. This core, however, is surrounded by a spiral of references that can be described as ‘peripheral’ to the central position of the linguistic core itself. These references are simultaneously complementary to the core, in the sense of mandatory complementarity. The author demonstrates full awareness of the core–surrounding (or its ‘peripheries’) relationship. The author conducts her synthetic–synergistic presentation within the necessary rhetorical context, which allows her to emphasise the universality of Trump’s cultural–linguistic–communicative behaviour as one of the participants in the universal rhetorical space of humanity. Dr. Strukowska has achieved an excellent result, presenting in a more than effective and exceptionally cognitively attractive manner for the reader, i.e., truly panoramic, yet concise and stylistically elegant, the broadly defined cultural–linguistic– communicative activities of the selected ‘human communicator’, Donald Trump. The uniqueness of this monograph, whether in terms of the choice of the topic itself, its research–descriptive approach, or its language, is beyond any doubt.
prof. dr hab. Stanisław Puppel Professor ordinarius at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, Head of the Department of Ecocommunication, Faculty of Modern Languages and Literature
Table of contents
List of tables 9
List of figures 11
Acknowledgments 13
1. Introductio 17
1.1. TOWARD A STUDY OF TRUMP 25
2.1. COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE 25
2.2. LANGUAGE AND CULTURE–AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 27
2.3. GATHERING DATA AND HUNTING PATTERNS 28
2.3.1. The ethnography of communication and its peripheries 28
2.4. THE FOUR ANTHROPOLINGUISTIC PARADIGMS 30
2.4.1. The first paradigm 30
2.4.2. The second paradigm 31
2.4.3. The third paradigm 33
2.4.4. The fourth paradigm 33
2.4.5. Language and patterns of thought 34
2.4.6. Habitus in practice 36
3. Language and Politics 39
3.1. POLITICAL DISCOURSE AS A TYPE OF AGENCY 39
3.2. AMERICAN PRESIDENCY AND ITS POWERS . . 41
TRACKING TRUMP An Anthropolinguistic Study of Discourse Practice and Political Persona
4. Beyond Discourse 45
4.1. AN ANTHROPOLINGUISTIC APPROACH TO DISCOURSE 45
4.2. DISCOURSE AS ACTION AND INTERACTION 46
4.3. ON THE ANTHROPOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF TEXT 47
4.3.1. Text as a communicative occurrence 48
4.4. MAPPING DONALD TRUMP’S IDEOLOGY 55
4.5. PROXIMISING THE ENEMY–‘US vs. THEM’ DICHOTOMY 56
4.5.1. Ideology and its representations 57
4.5.1.1. Ideologemes as cultural exponents 58
4.5.1.2. Projecting Donald Trump’s otherness 63
4.5.1.3. The [in]famous Trumpolect 65
5. The Mythologisation of Political Power 75
5.1. ON THE NOTION OF MYTH 75
5.1.1. The functional approach to myth 76
5.1.2. Myth in the making 78
5.1.3. Mythical trickery as a type of narrative 80
5.1.4. Myth and power 81
5.2. THE PRESIDENT AS A MYTH 85
5.2.1. The Trickster 87
5.2.2. The Wrestler 88
5.2.3. The Bastard 89
5.3. PROPAGANDA AND OTHER PROPS 90
5.3.1. Don’t fake it 91
5.3.2. How Trump’s myth happened 92
6. The athropolinguistic study of Donald Trump’s practices 99
6.1. THE STUDY’S DESIGN 101
6.1.1. The Anthropolinguistic Model of Communication (AMC) 101
6.2. THE ANALYSIS OF RHETORICAL PATTERNS 104
6.2.1. Ethos 106
6.2.1.1. Ethos/expressives correlation 109
6.2.2. Pathos 110
6.2.2.1. Pathos/Ethos correlation 114
6.2.3. Logos 115
6.2.3.1. Logos/commissives/promises correlation 120
6.2.3.2. Ethos/Logos correlation 121
6.2.4. Kairos 122
6.2.4.1. Kairos/Ethos correlation 123
6.2.4.2. Kairos/Logos correlation 124
6.2.5. Parallelism 125
6.2.5.1. Conclusions 127
6.3. THE ANALYSIS OF TEXTUAL/SPEECH ACT PATTERNS 128
6.3.1. Coherence/cohesion 129
6.3.1.1. Coherence/cohesion/Ethos/Pathos/Logos/Kairos correlation 130
6.3.1.2. Coherence/cohesion/acceptability/situationality correlation 132
6.3.1.3. Coherence/cohesion/overstatement correlation 132
6.3.3. Situationality 135
6.3.4. Situationality/Ethos correlation 137
6.3.5. Expressives 138
6.3.5.1. Ethos/Pathos/Logos/Kairos/situationality correlation 140
6.3.5.2. Situationality/cohesion/coherence correlation 141
6.3.5.3. Situationality/be optimistic strategy correlation 142
6.3.6. Acceptability 144
6.3.6.1. Ethos/Pathos/Logos/Kairos/acceptability correlation 145
6.3.6.2. Acceptability/expressives correlation 145
6.3.6.3. Conclusions 146
6.4. THE ANALYSIS OF POLITENESS PATTERNS 147
6.4.1. Negative politeness strategy 147
6.4.1.1. Pluralisation of the ‘I’ pronoun strategy 148
TRACKING TRUMP An Anthropolinguistic Study of Discourse Practice and Political Persona 150
6.4.1.2. Overgeneralisation and hedge strategy 151
6.4.1.3. Logos/overgeneralisation strategy correlation 153
6.4.1.4. Overgeneralisation (NP)/cohesion/coherence correlation 155
6.5. POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGY 156
6.5.1. Intensify interest to hearer strategy 157
6.5.1.1. Intensify interest to hearer strategy/intensifying modifier/ GF correlation 158
6.5.2. Promise strategy 159
6.5.2.1. Self–repetitions/promise strategy correlation 160
6.5.3. Be optimistic strategy 161
6.5.3.1. Be optimistic strategy/Kairos/acceptability/situationality correlation 162
6.5.3.2. Conclusions 164
6.6. THE ANALYSIS OF INDEX PATTERNS: LEXICAL DENSITY (LD)
AND THE GUNNING’S FOG INDEX (GF) 164
6.6.1. LD/situationality correlation 166
6.6.2. LD/self–repetition correlation 169
6.6.3. LD/GF correlation 170
6.7. THE PATTERNING STYLE OF DONALD TRUMP’S TEXTS 172
6.7.1. Rhetorical patterns 173
6.7.2. Textual/Speech act patterns 177
6.7.3. Donald Trump’s texts as genre sets 182
6.7.4. Politeness patterns 183
6.7.5. Index patterns 184
6.8. General conclusion 189
Subject index 219
About the Autho 224
List of tables
Table 1. The first paradigm (Duranti 2003: 326) 31
Table 2. The second paradigm (Duranti 2003: 329) 32
Table 3. The third paradigm (Duranti 2003: 333) 33
Table 4. The fourth communicative–discursive paradigm
(Chruszczewski 2011: 199) 34
Table 5. Ethos fallacies and their communicative purpose 106
Table 6. Ethos fallacies correlation 108
Table 7. Pathos fallacies 110
Table 8. Pathos fallacies correlation 113
Table 9. Logos fallacies 115
Table 10. Logos fallacies correlation 118
Table 11. Logos/commissives/promises correlation 120
Table 12. Ethos/Logos correla 121
Table 13. Kairos distribution over time 122
Table 14. Kairos/Ethos correlation 123
Table 15. Kairos/Logos correlation 124
Table 16. Frequency of parallelism according to its value 126
Table 17. Cohesion/coherence distribution over time 129
Table 18. Coherence/cohesion/Ethos/Pathos/Logos/Kairos correlation 131
Table 19. Intertextuality distribution over time 133
Table 20. Situationality/representatives/expressives/commissives distribution 136
Table 21. Situationality/Ethos correlation 137
TRACKING TRUMP An Anthropolinguistic Study of Discourse Practice and Political Persona
Table 22. Expressives distribution over time 138
Table 23. Ethos/Pathos/Logos/Kairos/situationality correlation 140
Table 24. Situationality/cohesion/coherence correlation 142
Table 25. Situationality/be optimistic strategy (PP) correlation 143
Table 26. Frequency of Acceptability 144
Table 27. Ethos/Pathos/Logos/Kairos/acceptability correlation 145
Table 28. Acceptability/expressives correlation 146
Table 29. Pluralisation of the ‘I’ pronoun strategy (NP)/assertions/ promises correlation 149
Table 30. overgeneralisation (NP)/hedge correlation 151
Table 31. Overgeneralisation/Logos correlation 153
Table 32. overgeneralisation (NP)/cohesion/coherence correlation 155
Table 33. Intensify interest to hearer (PP)/intensifying modifier (PP) promise (PP)/be optimistic (PP) distribution 156
Table 34. Intensify interest to hearer/intensifying modifier/GF correlation 158
Table 35. Self–repetitions/promise strategy correlation 160
Table 36. Be Optimistic strategy distribution over time 161
Table 37. Be optimistic (PP)/Kairos/acceptability/situationality 162
Table 38. LD/GF correlation 165
Table 39. LD/ situationality correlation 166
Table 40. Frequency of function words and content words 168
Table 41. LD/self–repetition correlation 169
Table 42. LD/GF correlation 170
Table 43. Patterns of correlations 173
List of figures Figure 1.
The graphical representation of the Anthropolinguistic Model of Communication (AMC) (the author’s own elaboration) 103
Figure 2.
A graphic representation of content words (LD) 167
Figure 3.
Model of creating high Power through representatives and rhetorical appeals 178
Figure 4.
Model of creating high Power through expressives and rhetorical appeal 179
Figure 5.
Model of creating high Power through commissives and rhetorical appeals 180