We, You or They? Variation in the Use of Personal Pronouns in Donald Trump’s Inaugural Speech

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Pages: 241-250

Abstract:

This paper examines the inaugural speech of the 45th president of the USA Donald Trump given on January 20th, 2017. The purpose of this study is to analyse the personal pronouns Trump uses in his speech and the way they vary in order to present him as a member of the people, of the government and/or to distance him from others. The current paper will focus on the varying between inclusive and exclusive ‘we’, the opposition ‘we-you’, the dichotomy we-they and the pair you-they. The theoretical framework builds on the approach of the Critical Discourse Analysis and the interpretation of the text in a particular social context, as well as on previous investigations in the sphere of pronoun variation.

Keywords:

inclusive we, exclusive we, dichotomy we-they, pronoun variation, political discourse, speech

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