Use of pronouns in political discourse: a study of the 2016 US presidential election debate and the 2019/2020 Croatian presidential election debate

diplomski rad

• Autor: Karlo Germadnik
• Mentor: Marina Grubišić (mentor)
• Član povjerenstva: Anđel Starčević (predsjednik povjerenstva)
• Član povjerenstva: Marina Grubišić (član povjerenstva)
• Član povjerenstva: Janja Čulig (član povjerenstva)
• Ustanova koja je dodijelila akademski / stručni stupanj: Sveučilište u Zagrebu; Filozofski fakultet; (Odsjek za anglistiku); Zagreb
• Datum i država obrane: 2021-09-28, Hrvatska
• Znanstveno / umjetničko područje, polje i grana: HUMANISTIČKE ZNANOSTI; Filologija; Anglistika

Sažetak

In my thesis, I explored pronoun use strategies utilized by presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the 2016 NBC presidential debate, as well as by presidential candidates Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović and Zoran Milanović in the 2019 RTL presidential debate. My goal was to uncover manipulative tactics achieved through strategic pronoun use, and to conduct a comparative analysis of strategic pronoun use in US and Croatian political rhetoric. I opened my thesis by summarizing the theoretical framework through a short examination of the role of power in critical discourse analysis and political discourse analysis. To highlight the importance of pronouns in political rhetoric, I proceeded by listing several manners in which politicians can use pronouns to manipulate an audience and achieve their political goals, which I then demonstrated with several historical examples of strategic pronoun use in political discourse. Afterwards, I provided a general overview of the debates I chose, the 2016 NBC debate and the 2019 RTL debate, and explained my reasoning for choosing them. Following this, I utilized relevant resources to construct a general idea of each candidates’ rhetoric, as well as some general expectations for strategic pronoun use in the debates. The analysis consisted of picking out illustrative examples of language use from the debates, isolating said examples and interpreting implicit and explicit meanings with the help of relevant literature from the fields of critical discourse analysis and political discourse analysis. In the “discussion” segment, I highlighted a lack of the solidary “We” in Croatian political discourse, as well as common use of the pronoun to denote in-group and out-group membership. When it comes to the pronoun “I”, I discovered its presence in emphasizing personal involvement and manipulation of perceived agency in Grabar-Kitarović and Trump’s rhetoric, and in individualization strategies in Trump and Milanović’s rhetoric. The establishment of an “us” vs. “them” dichotomy through pronoun use as a means to achieve political polarization and gain soft power was a staple in most of the candidates’ rhetoric. I found that Milanović commonly used possessives to highlight his adversary’s association to controversial figures and groups and, along with first-person pronouns, to concede responsibility for past failures. Gendered pronouns were mostly found in character attacks and heated moments. I also uncovered a lack of research on strategic language use in Croatian political discourse and emphasized its importance for future research.

• Ključne riječi: Critical discourse analysis; Political discourse analysis; pronouns; political discourse
• Jezik: engleski
• URN:NBN: urn:nbn:hr:131:788031
• Studijski program: Naziv: Anglistika (jednopredmetni); smjerovi: nastavnički, lingvistički, književno-kulturološki, prevoditeljski; Smjer: lingvistički; Vrsta studija: sveučilišni; Stupanj studija: diplomski; Akademski / stručni naziv: magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti (mag. philol. angl.)
• Vrsta resursa: Tekst
• Način izrade datoteke: Izvorno digitalna
• Prava pristupa: Otvoreni pristup
• Datum i vrijeme pohrane: 2021-10-03 15:39:52