Donald Trump's linguistic strategy in the 2016 presidential campaign

Presidential Election

CURRENT COVERAGE OF THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Donald Trump is flying high in the 2016 presidential election campaigns. Besides crushing his Republican opponents in national polls, Trump's critics have thrown in the towel (McCutcheon & Mark, 2016). Having underrated his candidature and accused of a racist and sexist huckster, Trump is now receiving the ultimate compliment and being taken seriously. This essay attempts to discuss the mystery of Donald Tramp's appeal. His opponents have to deal with his demeanor, his disdain for intellectual and party elites, as well as his talent for drawing media coverage. How is Trump achieving all these successes? Whichever the case, Trump's current position and his ultimate fate warrant a theoretical explanation. George Lakoff's linguistic theory is used to understand Trump's success. In this sense, the essay will focus on three major linguistic aspects of how Trump wants us to see him: insulting, big words and incoherence.

Insulting and Winning

Trump does not talk like his fellow presidential contestants. How is Trump's language different? Partly it is because of the clipped accent and the dismissive tone (McCutcheon & Mark, 2016). Trump is engaging his audience emotionally and successfully unlike his rivals. In fact, experts described him as perpetually annoyed and exasperated the way things are but somehow rumors about it. Although presidential contestants John Kasich and Chris Christie appear to be perpetually annoyed, nothing cheerful or funny is evident from in their language use.

Trump asserts that winning is the only ideal thing. In a nation governed by personal discipline and responsibility, the winners deserve to win. Donald Trump publicly insults other political leaders and presidential candidates mercilessly. This is simply because he believes that he can win an onstage broadcast insult game. He is a strict conservative, which renders him a formidable winning contestant who deserves to be a winner in the presidential elections. The 2016 electoral competition is a battle. Perhaps, the insults that stick often end up as antecedents of his victories (Schick & Schubert, 2014).

To understand what makes Trump's language different, we can look at a few of his sentences. The words he uses do not work the way modern political rhetoric does. Instead, they work like punchlines: very short with the most important words at the end (Lakoff, 2009). This is rare among Trumps competitors not because they lack Trump's comedic or showmanship gifts, but because most of them are careful with their language and word choice. They keenly understand that any word they speak might be interpreted or misinterpreted by partisan groups, journalists, demographic groups and constituents.

In situations where Trump knows a lot and relies on what he says or do not say, his language takes on two unique linguistic features. First, Trump's syntax is perfected to abstraction. He talks less about specific people and things such as identifiable officials and countries but talks more about international community, industry, government and legislation. Second, Trump's sentences employ various qualifying phrases and subordinate clauses (Lakoff, 2009). For instance, he says, "in general," "over the last couple of years," "what people are telling me" among other phrases. According to Lakoff, Trump employs such language because he knows that his words may be misinterpreted or used against him. Trump is loud in expressing how he feels about everything; he talks about aggression, force and anger. With his linguistic tactics, Trump has garnered massive voter support as people feel he expresses their "politically incorrect" views. This means he is championing the views of his supporters by serving them a sense of authority, self-respect and the possibility of power.

Trump uses his words so well that he assures listeners and conveys competence that he holds reasonable positions and thinks coherent thoughts. This suggests that Trump considers the truth of his arguments. However, his rivals are so careful with their language. In the end, such consciousness sounds like cowardice or deceit. Trump depends greatly on abstractions while avoiding concrete nouns (Schick & Schubert, 2014). As such, his statements are often hedged by qualifying words, which makes him sound like the worst 2016 presidential candidate. F or instance, in one of his news conference, Trump asserted, "I don't need money. I don't want money ... this is going to be a campaign, I think, like no other. I'm not controlled by lobbyists. I'm not controlled by anybody." A typical politician would not speak this way.

Typical candidates employ big words. Trump does not Whichever words he uses, Trump is still surging in 2016 presidential polls. Therefore, it is evident that something about him highly resonates with voters. Somehow, we can attribute this to his outsider persona, anti-establishment and as it Lakoff argues, this also extends to his use of language. Lakoff, a professional linguistic theorist claim that Trump is unlike other 2016 presidential contestants in all respects of his speech; his storytelling, his word choice and his use of hands (Schick & Schubert, 2014). For example, like typical politicians, Jeb Bush talks in a predictable manner. He uses rather big and policy-oriented worlds like the president, government and strategy. Bush accompanies such words with syllables such as "state" and "growth." On the other hand, Trump's most preferred word is "I" and his fourth most preferred word is "Trump." Of his 13 most favorite words, Trump's three favorite syllables are "China," "money" and "very." "

As seen, these words are preposterous in nature. Other than the statement, "We have deficits that are enormous," Trump's word range between nonsense, laughable and exaggeration (Lakoff, 2009). However, these words are rendered effective by the fact that they do not sound like political speech. Trump's opponents are modern Democrats who do not talk this way. It seems Trump does not make any effort to calculate the impact of his propositions on distinct constituencies. Obviously, he genuinely knows that anyone can pick them apart. Trump does not make any attempts to hedge his statements or construct in such a manner that they are defensible. In fact, when he talks, the characteristics of a politician are absent in him. The listener might think that s/he is listening to a common citizen in rejection of the conventions of electoral politics.

Conclusions

Donald Trump's campaign language is characterized by a limited vocabulary, fragmented sentences and broken speech. Lakoff's linguistic theory establishes that the way Trump talks reflect the average conversation. As such, this makes electorates believe that he is an honest outsider. His language strategy has differentiated him from his competitors as he continues to woo many voters into his presidential campaign. In fact, his speech is appealing to many partly because it differs with the rehearsed approach of his rival candidates. Trump's conversational design has contributed to his overall image as an authentic candidate and as a political outsider. This is a vital quality to the UE electorates. Nevertheless, the citizen's different reactions on how Trump talks mirror other differences in views regarding qualities of a good presidential aspirant.

Overall, as far as the U.S. political world is concerned, Trump's language has defied precedent. As for me, I believe in the theory that Trump is asking for more than he wants. Because I have at once haggled for something, I know that the first offer is nothing more of a starting point for negotiations. Therefore, this essay has established that Trump is effectively applying his language tactics to get this while his opponents are not. Lakoff's theory illustrates how Trump is throwing words out there that appear ridiculous and laughable at face value. For instance, Trump says, "build a wall and throw out all the illegals." Therefore, Trump will be extremely happy to receive anything less than his opening offer. However, he is currently in a linguistic fight to control the range.