Understanding Literary Content Through Context: A Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump’s Inaugural Speech

Abstract

This study employs a critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach to examine the linguistic features, rhetorical devices, and discursive strategies employed in Donald Trump's inaugural speech. Hence, the objective as such is to, analyze how the context of Trump's Inaugural speech impacts its literary content, including rhetorical devices, tone, and language, and to investigate how the historical and cultural context of Trump's Inaugural speech shapes its meaning, uncovering power dynamics, ideologies, and cultural references through discourse analysis. The analysis reveals that Trump's speech is characterized by simple and declarative sentences, repetitive metaphors, and pronoun usage, which create a sense of directness, clarity, and shared purpose. Specifically, the study finds that Trump's speech features 15 instances of simple sentences, 20 instances of declarative sentences, and 10 instances of pronoun usage. Additionally, the speech employs metaphor (3 instances), repetition (5 instances), and antithesis (2 instances) to create a sense of urgency and momentum. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that Trump's speech reflects nationalist (5 instances), populist (3 instances), and conservative (2 instances) ideologies. This study contributes to a nuanced understanding of the role of language in shaping political reality and highlights the importance of contextualizing literary content to uncover its underlying ideologies/power dynamics.