Trump Speak

(I will be adding to this post as the semester progresses...)

For a sociolinguist, President Trump's tweets are a treasure trove of linguistic oddities. There are several traits he has become known for:

• the use of nicknames (I have a separate post on this)
• the use of superlatives (best, smartest, greatest, biggest, etc.)
• "Nobody has been tougher on Russia than me."
• "Nobody builds better wall than I do."
• “I know words...https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2018/01/19/one-year-trump-linguistics-expert-analyses-us-presidents-influence-language/https://qz.com/1153080/trump-tweets-analyzed-by-linguists-reveal-five-characteristics/I have the best words.”
• the use of negative hyperbole 
• "The worst FBI director in our history" 
• "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
• "The worst trade deal ever made."
• a lack of complex vocabulary, favoring a small set of words used over and over, such as the frequent use of "Sad!"
• the use of future progressive tense
• "You're going to be seeing..."
• "We're going to be looking at..."
• "They're going to be asking..."
• the use of hedges, or backtracking
•  “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment.” 
• "Certainly there was meddling. Probably there was meddling from other countries."
• the use of apophasis, which is a figure of speech typically used to bring up a taboo subject by either denying it or pretending to pass over it:
• “I was going to say ‘dummy’ Bush; I won’t say it. I won’t say it,”
• “I promised I would not say that she ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground, that she laid off tens of thousands of people and she got viciously fired. I said I will not say it, so I will not say it.” 
• the use of  parataxis and/or hyptotaxis, which is the stringing of simple clauses together in a jumble (a run-on sentence):
• "...my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at M.I.T.; good genes, very good genes, O.K., very smart, the Wharton School of finance, very good, very smart – you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world – it’s true! – but when you're a conservative Republican they try – oh, they do a number – that’s why I always start off: "Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune”– you know I have to give my life credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged – but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me …
• the use of vague sentences with no antecedent
• "When you look at what they've been doing, it's very unfair." (What exactly is he referring to? Who are THEY?)
• "When you see what they've been doing over there.." (who and what?)
•  "Everybody's saying it..." (who?)

MORE TO BE ADDED SOON...


Here are a few brief (some informative, some entertaining, some both) news stories focusing on his use of language, both spoken and written. (I'll be adding to this collection as the semester progresses.)

• Jeannie Moos of CNN: 
• Trump's Curious Case of Going with Uppercase: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/05/07/capital-trump-twitter-moos-pkg.cnn
• Trump's Typos: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/03/21/donald-trump-tweet-typos-moos-pkg-erin.cnn
• (from a guest on Anderson Cooper's 360) Trump's use of forceful and easy-to-remember phrases with two words, often mono-syllabic:
• "fake news"
• "witch hunt"
• "deep state"
• "Spy-gate"
• "not good"
• "fire & fury" 
• "believe me"
• NOTE: One study found that 78% of Trump's words are monosyllabic

More linguistic analysis you might find interesting:

• A fascinating set of "word clouds": https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald
• https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/11/14238274/trumps-speaking-style-press-conference-linguists-explaintrump-s-campaign-tweets-n593846
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/07/07/this-linguist-studied-the-way-trump-speaks-for-two-years-heres-what-she-found/?utm_term=.f9b6444f44f0 
• https://qz.com/1153080/trump-tweets-analyzed-by-linguists-reveal-five-characteristics/
• https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/21/politics/donald-trump-president-speeches-favorite-phrases-trnd/index.html
• Linguist George Lakoff: https://www.fastcompany.com/90155999/graphic-trumps-tweets-can-be-reduced-to-4-rhetorical-strategies (see graphic below)