Date Thesis Awarded

5-2024

Access Type

Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only

Degree Name

Bachelors of Arts (BA)

Department

Linguistics

Advisor

Iyabo Osiapem

Committee Members

Leslie Cochrane

Sadhwi Srinivas

Francesca Sawaya

Abstract

In 2020, two African Americans—George Floyd and Breonna Taylor—were killed by police officers, and subsequently, there were nationwide protests demanding racial justice. With 2020 also being the year of the presidential election, race became a particularly salient topic in the political discourse (Hunnicut & Mason, 2020). This study examines Biden and Trump’s discursive practices on Twitter about the topics of the acts of police brutality and the protests. Specifically, I examine their stancetaking and legitimization practices (Kiesling, 2022; van Leeuwen, 2007; Reyes, 2011) by conducting a transitivity analysis (Halliday & Mathiessen, 2004) and a pronoun usage analysis (Mühlhäusler & Harré, 1990). The findings of this study show that Trump and Biden choose to focus on different topics with their stances, and they have different stance objects within these topics. Trump uses material process clauses to primarily delegitmize the violence that occurred during the protests, and to legitimize his own actions, using the exclusive we to do so. Biden, however, uses material process clauses to legitimize the the goals behind the protests, and he uses the inclusive we to include the American people as part of the action that changes the country. These findings are consistent with Trump’s previous discursive patterns, extending some of those findings to Twitter about this topic, and it provides new scholarship about Biden’s practices. Considering that in 2024, there is another presidential election in which Biden and Trump are candidates and a new set of nationwide protests, this study offers an opportunity for a critical analysis of Trump’s and Biden’s discursive practices this election.

Keywords: Trump, Biden, discourse analysis, stancetaking, legitimation, transitivity analysis, pronoun usage, Twitter

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