What is Rhetoric and how does it relate to President Trump?

Hello! I’m currently conducting a senior capstone project that investigates how Trump’s use of language helped him win the presidential election.

Rhetoric is what allures people and keeps them transfixed in the power of the word. The way an idea is communicated can fix ideas and phrases in people's midns. Trump’s rhetoric is powerful. Yet, simple in terms of language. My project, The Power of Rhetoric: Analyzing President-Elect Trump’s Victory, will explore the linguistic perspective of the specific words, phrases, and sentences that Trump uses in his speech.

Some examples while researching earlier include:

• favoring the use of 2nd person speech

• simple sentences that reflect a 4th grade reading level (in which many of his words consist of one syllable)

• Starting his sentences that are incoherent, and ending them with strong, dramatic words (i.e. bedlam, problem) that will stick in the listener’s mind.

I plan on researching, transcribing, and coding Trump’s campaign speeches during the three main presidential debates. While the Republican primary debates would increase my data size, it will likely be a challenge to transcribe all 11 of the debates. I will read through articles posted by newspaper publications, academic papers that analyze his rhetoric. Then, maybe I can even compare his speech to Clinton’s and find similarities and, of course, differences. Because rhetoric includes a wide range of techniques—whether it be from word choice, to sentence structure to even punctuation—I plan to explore a different one each week.

Please stay tuned and I will update you about my findings next week!

Thank you,

Gina