Full Length Research Paper
The Erasure of the Other in Donald Trumps Political Discourse
Taher Ben Khalifa
Article Number - 65BBDAF4522E4 | Vol. 5(1), pp. 1-11, February 2024 |
Received: 9 December 2023 | Accepted: 19 January 2024 | Published: 1 February 2024
Copyright © 2024 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article.
This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0.
Abstract
This paper purports to
study the erasure of the other in Trumps discourse. It consists of a
theoretical and a practical part. The theories elaborated, in part one, are
applied to analyze examples from Trumps speeches in part two. This is based on
Van Dijks triangulation of discourse, society, and cognition. To apply this
approach, a simple method is used. First, the textual traces of erasure are
pointed out. Second, the data are categorized and analyzed. Third, the findings
are interpreted and discussed. The results demonstrate that: a) erasure
manifests itself at various levels of discourse; b) erasure is the result of
power abuse; and c) erasure is ideologically monitored to re-shape different
realities. These ideologies revolve around concepts like interests, victory,
gain, control, and domination. Finally, the paper brings theoretical and
practical contributions to the study of erasure and high-lights the need to use
other theories like psychology. By high-lighting this, the paper leaves the
doors open for further investigations on how politicians use language to remove
their counter parts and how researchers can fights erasure. Keywords: Trump, Othering, Erasure,
Rejection, Denigration, Minimization, Marginalization, Silencing, Ideology.
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Authors
Taher Ben Khalifa
Department
of English, Higher Institute of Applied Studies in Humanities, University of
Gafsa, Gafsa, Tunisia. E-mail: [email protected], Tel.: +216 25 065 755
How to Cite this Article
Ben Khalifa, T. (2024). The Erasure of the Other in Donald
Trumps Political Discourse. Archives of
Political Science Research, 5(1), 1-11.
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