A Corpus Analysis of Donald Trump’s Political Communications

This study aimed to determine the frequently used words in the campaign speeches of President Donald J. Trump and to find out if the modes of persuasion, such as pathos, ethos and logos are employed in his speeches. This study utilized the qualitative method of research in analyzing the corpus (12 campaign speeches). When the corpus of the study was fed in the word count tool and text analyzer software, it was found out that the word “will” got the highest frequency of 121, followed by Hillary (58), American (38), going (35), plan and Clinton (32), illegal (30), government (28), corruption (26) and criminal (24). Further, it was also found out that Trump employed the modes of persuasion in his speeches. Given the results of the study, the researcher concludes that Pres. Trump’s frequently used words and modes of persuasion might help him won the US election because the statements having the frequently used words and modes of persuasion are against Hillary or in his own favor. The findings of the study can lead to pedagogical implication which the language teachers may use this study to acquaint the students that modes of persuasion as well as frequently used words are important in order to win in a certain debate. On the other hand, this study may also be helpful for the aspiring politicians so that they will be mindful of the words and statements that they will utter in front of the people.