Peculiarities of political discourse in the English language

Abstract

This paper’s aim is to conduct the linguistic analysis of political discourse. The material for the analysis is chosen to be the 2020 Presidential Debates between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Linguistic analysis of such type of political discourse text seems to not have been conducted in a great number, so this research adds to the knowledge on political linguistic aspects. Based on the theoretical framework, metaphors, metonymies, and pronouns were identified as special features of political discourse, and were respectively analyzed in this paper in the chosen material. The research applied mixed approach; features were analyzed according to the respective ways of analysis, classified accordingly: metaphors – according to metaphorical concepts, metonymies – according to metaphorical concepts, and pronouns – only considering personal pronouns, according to their person and referential domain; and tied to the context to explain their role. The results showed that the leading feature is singular first person personal pronoun “I”, which helps opponents defend their position. Among the other features, it has been noted that the main concept of metaphors is Argument is War, deriving the associations from the area of war in order to make statements stronger. Metonymies seem to be rich in the concept of Institution for the People Responsible, which also makes up for the more strong and precise speech.