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Article published In:
Integrating dialogue
Edited by Răzvan Săftoiu and Adrian Pablé
[Language and Dialogue 8:1] 2018
► pp. 21–42

The persuasive use of pronouns in action games of election campaigns

| Transilvania University of Braşov (Romania)
| Transilvania University of Braşov (Romania)

Action games of election campaigns are one of the best venues for politicians to team up with specialists in communication studies in order to build, review, construct or deconstruct their own or their opponent’s image with the purpose of persuading the electorate to vote for a certain political group. Various action games of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign are analysed with regard to different dialogic means used by the speaker in order to persuade the audience to vote for him. For instance, he evokes nationalistic views in his speeches and skilfully uses pronouns in order to establish his role as dominant, strong, and credible nominee for presidency. Since we focus on a particular practice in dialogic language use, we will show that the Mixed Game Model (MGM) is more appropriate to study the argumentative power of words than integrationism.

Keywords: action game, election campaigns, political speech, persuasion
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1The mixed game model vs. integrational linguistics
    • 2.2Games of positioning oneself as the best candidate
  • 3.The persuasive use of pronouns in action games of election campaigns
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2The persuasive use of pronouns in Donald Trump’s speeches
      • 3.2.1Targeting the audience
        • 3.2.1.1Using self-references
        • 3.2.1.2Establishing a bond with the audience
        • 3.2.1.3Dissociation
        • 3.2.1.4Authoritative leader
      • 3.2.2Targeting the opponents
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 26 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00003.saf
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Cited by 3 other publications

Kayam, Orly
2018. Donald Trump’s rhetoric. Language and Dialogue 8:2 ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Pablé, Adrian
2018. Abandoning the simple by disintegrating the sign?. Language and Dialogue 8:1 ► pp. 84 ff. DOI logo
Pablé, Adrian
2019. Integrating the (dialogical) sign: or who's an integrationist?. Language Sciences 75 ► pp. 72 ff. DOI logo

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