LINGUISTIC FEATURES AND THE TERM ‘AMERICAN DREAM’ IN POLITICAL SPEECHES OF DONALD TRUMP AND JOE BIDEN

ABSTRACT

“American Dream” is a collective term, referring to the set of ideals that are applicable to the national ethos of the USA. In other words and iterations, American Dream can simply refer to the way the American people live, the luxuries they can afford and the general above-average lifestyle that seems appealing to many immigrants.

It is therefore no wonder that American Dream is often a tool of political persuasion, often used by political candidates even today. The following article will therefore aim to discuss the usage of the term “American Dream” in the presidential debates of then-president Donald Trump and current president of the US, Joe Biden, as well as estimate the impacts.

The relevance of the conducted work is observable in the fact that despite everything, US remains a global force in political sense and creates a vector of development for its neighbors. USA is one of the major political axes and the following work may provide some valuable insights into not only linguistic matters but political ones as well.

Keywords: American Dream, political discourse, linguistic features

Introduction

American Dream was coined as a term in the 20^th century and over time, became not just a symbol of a wealth, luxury and otherwise appealing lifestyles, but also as a symbolic depiction of the country’s political prowess.

To better understand the topic, it is necessary to first outline that the status of the dream is widely contested, its certain elements and features criticized.

For instance, Cote and Suzette [6] argue, that the from sociological point of view, the impact of promoting a lifestyle that encourages people to pursue financial prosperity and success leads to unforeseen consequences.

Over the history of the coined term, the Dream has become less of a symbol and more a political tool. Such transition took place over the entirety of the 20^th century and by the 21^st century, the Dream had transitioned to a term often referred to by political figures.

Indeed, according to Suri [5], Kissinger was in fact one of the first and most prominent political figures who had connected their political campaigns, debates, speeches around it in some way; among the other examples of Dream’s popularity among politically active individuals are Hillary Clinton, according to Dervin [2] and Lincoln, according to Blum [1].

The first Black president of the United States, Barack Obama, also had touched upon the theme of Dream in his memoirs [3]

Given all of the above, we believe it reasonable to say that the Dream itself has become a consistent part of American life.

The Dream in Biden and Trump’s rhetoric. The linguistic features

Prior to becoming a president in the year 2016, Trump’s style of appealing to his audience was found to be filled with populisms and exaggerated promises, according to Skonieczny [4], a characteristic, often criticized in the scientific circles. Nonetheless, as the results demonstrated, he was eventually the one elected and was, indeed, elected 46^th president.

It is worth noting that even after being eventually succeeded by the current president, Joe Biden, Trump still appeals to the notion of the Dream and urges his supporters that he is the only thing standing between the Dream and chaos itself. [7]

As for the linguistic features of his speech, during his presidential debates with Biden, Trump was noted as repeatedly using personal pronouns at a rate that exceeds that of his opponent’s. According to Sartika, Trump often uses repetition due to the effect it creates; convincing people of the statements that are being made and making them more acceptable via constant repetition. [X]

What’s more important however is the usage of personal pronouns, which is perhaps the key component of not only the Dream as a whole, but the American politics in general.

Wodak states that the usage of personal pronouns is the single most defining feature of any political discourse, not necessarily American due to the necessity in the politics to create a better image of “us” and tarnish the image of the opposition or “them” in any way.

According to Sartika, Trump has demonstrated a far more excessive usage of not only the personal pronouns, but repetition as well, therefore being the far more engaging speaker, even going as far as to cause Biden to rebuke him verbally.

We believe it to be reasonable therefore to state that for Trump, the Dream is exactly what we estimated it to be in the beginning – a tool to win over people’s trust. However, the practical results of the implementation, according to many, has been far from successful.

When compared to Trump, the current president of the US has been far less outspoken. In fact, in 2009, during one of his speeches, Biden remarked on the fact that “American dream receded” and the “middle class was left out of it for far too long”.

Unlike Trump, however, the current president of the United States uses the term in a more reserved fashion, but nonetheless making a promise to “rekindle it” which has been met with hesitation due to hardships that marked his presidency.

On the other hand, Biden does serve as a prime example of the dream coming true [8], to an extent.

This marks one of the rare instances of the usage of the term Dream by Biden. The defining feature of Biden’s usage of the term is the lack of anything different to the vision of the Dream. It retains its materialistic properties that it always have had and that were reinforced due to his opponent consistent usage of the term.

Upon finalizing our research, we have found many striking similarities of the usage of the term “American dream” in the case of both presidents. Both retain heavily materialistic perception of the “Dream”, both make it sound appealing to their audience in an attempt to convince them and, similarly, both presidents face hardships when turning said dream into reality.

This reaffirms the concerns and criticisms that were expressed in the beginning of the article and serve as ground for further suggestions in that regard.

We believe further research is necessary to estimate how presidential and political figures in particular comprehend the term of the dream.

 As for the linguistic features and their relevance to the dream, we believe it plausible to conclude that Trump’s more rapid and overwhelming mannerism of conducting is what effectively makes him stand out in comparison to his then-opponent.

The further implications of the research can proceed in several directions. Naturally, as the hypothesis assumes in the beginning, the dream has finalized its transition from a symbol to a tool. Despite becoming increasingly intangible and incomprehensible to a common American, it remains popular amongst political circles, who utilize it as a political tool and thus make it a consistent linguistic feature of American politics and even coining several similar terms such as Chinese Dream.

References:

1. Edward J. Blum, "Lincoln's American Dream: Clashing Political Perspectives", Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Summer 2007, Vol. 28 Issue 2, pp. 90–93
2. Dan Dervin, "The Dream-Life of Hillary Clinton", Journal of Psychohistory, Fall 2008, Vol. 36 Issue 2, pp. 157–162
3. Willie J. Harrell, "'The Reality of American Life Has Strayed From Its Myths,'" Journal of Black Studies, Sep 2010, Vol. 41 Issue 1, pp. 164–183
4. A Skonieczny - Emotions and political narratives: Populism, Trump and trade- Politics and Governance, 2018 - cogitatiopress.com
5. Jeremi Suri, "Henry Kissinger, the American Dream, and the Jewish Immigrant Experience in the Cold War," Diplomatic History, Nov 2008, Vol. 32 Issue 5, pp. 719–747
6. Cote, Suzette (2002). "Crime and American Dream". Criminological Theories: Bridging the Past to the Future.
7. “Trump says he is ‘the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy.’” - [Electronic resource] – Access Mode - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/21/us/elections/trump-says-he-is-the-only-thing-standing-between-the-american-dream-and-total-anarchy.html - (date of application – 25.11.2021)
8. “Joe Biden Bid to Revive American Dream Hinges on Divided Congress” - [electronic resource] – Access Mode - https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/joe-biden-bid-to-revive-american-dream-hinges-on-divided-congress-2600719 - (date of application 24.11.2021)