Research Article
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Year 2020, Volume: 16 Issue: 4, 1854 - 1868, 30.12.2020
https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.851011

Abstract

References

  • Alonzo, M., & Aiken, M. (2004). Flaming in electronic communication. Decision Support Systems, 36(3), 205-213. DOI: 10.1016/S0167-9236(02)00190-2
  • Austin, J. (1961). How to Do Things with Words . New York : Oxford University Press .
  • Bradner, E., Mucha, S., & Judd, D. (2020, June 8). Biden says he doesn't support defunding police. Retrieved on June 18, 2020 from https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/08/politics/joe-biden-defund-the-police/index.html
  • Clark, I., & Grieve, J. (2019). Stylistic variation on the Donald Trump Twitter account: A linguistic analysis of tweets posted between 2009 and 2018. PLoS ONE, 14(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0222062
  • Crystal, D. (2011). Internet linguistics: A student guide. London: Routledge.
  • Dahlman, C., Reidhav, D., & Wahlberg, L. (2013). Fallacies in ad hominem arguments. In Dahlman, C. (Ed.), Legal Argumentation Theory: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives (pp. 57-70). Law and Philosophy Library Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-4670-1
  • Eemeren, F., & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, communication, and fallacies: A pragma-dialectical perspective. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
  • Eemeren, F., & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A Systematic theory of argumentation: The para-dialectical approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Elisberg, R. (2011, May 25). When democrats eat their young. Retrieved on June 1, 2020 from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/when-democrats-eat-their_b_407112
  • Fairclough, Norman. (2005). Blair’s contribution to elaborating a new ‘Doctrine of International Community.’ Journal of Language and Politics, 40(1), 41-63. DOI: 10.1075/jlp.4.1.03fai
  • Golshan, T. (2016, October 19). Donald Trump’s strange speaking style, as explained by linguists. Retrieved on June 3, 2020 from https://www.vox.com/2016/8/18/12423688/donald-trump-speech-style-explained-by-linguists
  • Hall, K., Goldstein, D. M., & Ingram, M. B. (2016). The hands of Donald Trump: Entertainment, gesture, spectacle. Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 6(2), 71-100. DOI: 10.14318/hau6.2.009
  • Kayam, O. (2018). The readability and simplicity of Donald Trump’s language. Political Studies Review, 16(1), 73-88. DOI: 10.1177/1478929917706844
  • Lithwick, D. (2020, May 29). Whether the President understands the racist history of “looting and shooting” is beside the point. Retrieved on June 7, 2020 from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/trump-looters-shooters-racism.html
  • Monggong, L. (2017, July). Language and culture in the case of Merriam-Webster's correction over President Trump's tweets. Presentation at the International Seminar on Language Maintenance and Shift. Semarang, Indonesia.
  • Nicoloff, F. (1989). Threats and illocutions. Journal of Pragmatics, 13(4), 501-522. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(89)90038-6
  • Ott, B. L. (2017). The age of Twitter: Donald J. Trump and the politics of debasement. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 34(1), 59-68. DOI: 10.1080/15295036.2016.1266686
  • Peoples, S., Farm, A., and Lemire, J. (2020, June 9). Key democrats spurnpPush to defund police amid Trump attacks. Retrieved on June 15, 2020 from https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2020-06-09/key-democrats-spurn-push-to-defund-police-amid-trump-attacks
  • Robinson, D. (2019, August 09). Text analysis of Trump's tweets confirms he writes only the (angrier) Android half. Retrieved on June 5, 2020 from http://varianceexplained.org/r/trump-tweets/
  • Sahlane, A. (2015). Dialectics of argument and rhetoric: Protesting the Iraq war in US-British opinion press. Discourse & Society, 26(6), 1-21. DOI: 10.1177/0957926515592790
  • Sahlane, A. (2012). Argumentation and fallacy in the justification of the 2003 war on Iraq. Argumentation 26(4), 459-488. DOI: 10.1007/s10503-012-9265-8
  • Salmon, M. H. (2013). Introduction to logic and critical thiking . Boston: Wadsworth, Inc.
  • Searle, J. (1970). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Sornig, Karl. (1989). Some remarks on linguistic strategies of persuasion. In R. Wodak (Ed.), Language, power and ideology: Studies in political discourse (pp. 95-113). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI: 10.1075/ct.7.09sor
  • van Dijk, T. (2002) Political discourse and political cognition. In P. Chilton & C. Schäffner (Eds.), Politics as text and talk: Analytic approaches to political discourse (pp. 203-237). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins
  • Publishing Company. DOI: 10.1075/dapsac.4.11dij
  • Walton, D. (2014). A dialectical analysis of the ad baculum fallacy. Informal Logic, 34(4), 276-310. DOI: 10.22329/il.v34i3.4109
  • Walton, D. (2006). Poisoning th well. Argumentation, 20(3), 273-307. DOI: 10.1007/s10503-006-9013-z
  • Walton, D. (2000). Scare tactics: Arguments that appeal to fear and threats. University of Alabama Press . Springer Netherlands: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-2940-6
  • Wang, Y., & Liu, H. (2018). Is Trump always rambling like a fourth-grade student? An analysis of stylistic features of Donald Trump's political discourse during the 2016 election. Discourse and Society, 29(3), 299-323. DOI: 10.1177/0957926517734659
  • Wodak, R. (2015). Political Argumentation. In G. Mazzoleni (Ed.), The International encyclopedia of political communication (pp. 43-52). New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI: 10.1002/9781118541555.wbiepc080
  • Yen, H., Woodward, C., & Seitz, Amanda. (2020, June 13). AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s law and order and misinformation. Retrieved on June 23, 2020 from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-fact-check-trumps-law-and-order-and-misinformation

Looting leads to shooting: A pragma-dialectical analysis of President Trump’s argumentative discourse on Floyd’s death

Year 2020, Volume: 16 Issue: 4, 1854 - 1868, 30.12.2020
https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.851011

Abstract

This study aims at problematizing President Trump’s argumentation in response to the protesters’ demands for justice, racial equality and police reforms over the killing of George Floyd. In his first reaction, Trump used mild rhetoric that frustrated and galvanized the angry mobs. In response to escalating protests, Trump escalated his own rhetoric. Calling into question the character and credibility of the protesters, Trump labelled the protesters “thugs” and “terrorists”, alluded to the deployment of the Military, and tweeted “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”. Pragma-dialectical analysis of Trumps’ response reveals that rational argumentation yields to derailed strategic maneuvering involving name-giving, ad baculum and ad hominem fallacies. Trump makes a dialectical shift from persuasive logic to fear arousing and threat making tactics in order to coercively hold up demonstrations and enforce compliance, and later shifts from persuasion to eristic discourse. He politicizes his response by accusing the media of fomenting hatred and anarchy, and by blaming the mayhem on his democratic rival, who is ridiculed and personally abused. These are irrelevant argumentative moves in the socio-political context as well as in the context of the persuasion discourse.

References

  • Alonzo, M., & Aiken, M. (2004). Flaming in electronic communication. Decision Support Systems, 36(3), 205-213. DOI: 10.1016/S0167-9236(02)00190-2
  • Austin, J. (1961). How to Do Things with Words . New York : Oxford University Press .
  • Bradner, E., Mucha, S., & Judd, D. (2020, June 8). Biden says he doesn't support defunding police. Retrieved on June 18, 2020 from https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/08/politics/joe-biden-defund-the-police/index.html
  • Clark, I., & Grieve, J. (2019). Stylistic variation on the Donald Trump Twitter account: A linguistic analysis of tweets posted between 2009 and 2018. PLoS ONE, 14(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0222062
  • Crystal, D. (2011). Internet linguistics: A student guide. London: Routledge.
  • Dahlman, C., Reidhav, D., & Wahlberg, L. (2013). Fallacies in ad hominem arguments. In Dahlman, C. (Ed.), Legal Argumentation Theory: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives (pp. 57-70). Law and Philosophy Library Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-4670-1
  • Eemeren, F., & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, communication, and fallacies: A pragma-dialectical perspective. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
  • Eemeren, F., & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A Systematic theory of argumentation: The para-dialectical approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Elisberg, R. (2011, May 25). When democrats eat their young. Retrieved on June 1, 2020 from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/when-democrats-eat-their_b_407112
  • Fairclough, Norman. (2005). Blair’s contribution to elaborating a new ‘Doctrine of International Community.’ Journal of Language and Politics, 40(1), 41-63. DOI: 10.1075/jlp.4.1.03fai
  • Golshan, T. (2016, October 19). Donald Trump’s strange speaking style, as explained by linguists. Retrieved on June 3, 2020 from https://www.vox.com/2016/8/18/12423688/donald-trump-speech-style-explained-by-linguists
  • Hall, K., Goldstein, D. M., & Ingram, M. B. (2016). The hands of Donald Trump: Entertainment, gesture, spectacle. Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 6(2), 71-100. DOI: 10.14318/hau6.2.009
  • Kayam, O. (2018). The readability and simplicity of Donald Trump’s language. Political Studies Review, 16(1), 73-88. DOI: 10.1177/1478929917706844
  • Lithwick, D. (2020, May 29). Whether the President understands the racist history of “looting and shooting” is beside the point. Retrieved on June 7, 2020 from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/trump-looters-shooters-racism.html
  • Monggong, L. (2017, July). Language and culture in the case of Merriam-Webster's correction over President Trump's tweets. Presentation at the International Seminar on Language Maintenance and Shift. Semarang, Indonesia.
  • Nicoloff, F. (1989). Threats and illocutions. Journal of Pragmatics, 13(4), 501-522. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(89)90038-6
  • Ott, B. L. (2017). The age of Twitter: Donald J. Trump and the politics of debasement. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 34(1), 59-68. DOI: 10.1080/15295036.2016.1266686
  • Peoples, S., Farm, A., and Lemire, J. (2020, June 9). Key democrats spurnpPush to defund police amid Trump attacks. Retrieved on June 15, 2020 from https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2020-06-09/key-democrats-spurn-push-to-defund-police-amid-trump-attacks
  • Robinson, D. (2019, August 09). Text analysis of Trump's tweets confirms he writes only the (angrier) Android half. Retrieved on June 5, 2020 from http://varianceexplained.org/r/trump-tweets/
  • Sahlane, A. (2015). Dialectics of argument and rhetoric: Protesting the Iraq war in US-British opinion press. Discourse & Society, 26(6), 1-21. DOI: 10.1177/0957926515592790
  • Sahlane, A. (2012). Argumentation and fallacy in the justification of the 2003 war on Iraq. Argumentation 26(4), 459-488. DOI: 10.1007/s10503-012-9265-8
  • Salmon, M. H. (2013). Introduction to logic and critical thiking . Boston: Wadsworth, Inc.
  • Searle, J. (1970). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Sornig, Karl. (1989). Some remarks on linguistic strategies of persuasion. In R. Wodak (Ed.), Language, power and ideology: Studies in political discourse (pp. 95-113). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI: 10.1075/ct.7.09sor
  • van Dijk, T. (2002) Political discourse and political cognition. In P. Chilton & C. Schäffner (Eds.), Politics as text and talk: Analytic approaches to political discourse (pp. 203-237). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins
  • Publishing Company. DOI: 10.1075/dapsac.4.11dij
  • Walton, D. (2014). A dialectical analysis of the ad baculum fallacy. Informal Logic, 34(4), 276-310. DOI: 10.22329/il.v34i3.4109
  • Walton, D. (2006). Poisoning th well. Argumentation, 20(3), 273-307. DOI: 10.1007/s10503-006-9013-z
  • Walton, D. (2000). Scare tactics: Arguments that appeal to fear and threats. University of Alabama Press . Springer Netherlands: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-2940-6
  • Wang, Y., & Liu, H. (2018). Is Trump always rambling like a fourth-grade student? An analysis of stylistic features of Donald Trump's political discourse during the 2016 election. Discourse and Society, 29(3), 299-323. DOI: 10.1177/0957926517734659
  • Wodak, R. (2015). Political Argumentation. In G. Mazzoleni (Ed.), The International encyclopedia of political communication (pp. 43-52). New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI: 10.1002/9781118541555.wbiepc080
  • Yen, H., Woodward, C., & Seitz, Amanda. (2020, June 13). AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s law and order and misinformation. Retrieved on June 23, 2020 from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-fact-check-trumps-law-and-order-and-misinformation
There are 32 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Journal Section Research Article
Authors

Gibreel Sadeq Alaghbary This is me

Publication Date December 30, 2020
Published in Issue Year 2020 Volume: 16 Issue: 4

Cite

APA Alaghbary, G. S. (2020). Looting leads to shooting: A pragma-dialectical analysis of President Trump’s argumentative discourse on Floyd’s death. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 16(4), 1854-1868. https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.851011
AMA Alaghbary GS. Looting leads to shooting: A pragma-dialectical analysis of President Trump’s argumentative discourse on Floyd’s death. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies. December 2020;16(4):1854-1868. doi:10.17263/jlls.851011
Chicago Alaghbary, Gibreel Sadeq. “Looting Leads to Shooting: A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis of President Trump’s Argumentative Discourse on Floyd’s Death”. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies 16, no. 4 (December 2020): 1854-68. https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.851011.
EndNote Alaghbary GS (December 1, 2020) Looting leads to shooting: A pragma-dialectical analysis of President Trump’s argumentative discourse on Floyd’s death. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies 16 4 1854–1868.
IEEE G. S. Alaghbary, “Looting leads to shooting: A pragma-dialectical analysis of President Trump’s argumentative discourse on Floyd’s death”, Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 1854–1868, 2020, doi: 10.17263/jlls.851011.
ISNAD Alaghbary, Gibreel Sadeq. “Looting Leads to Shooting: A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis of President Trump’s Argumentative Discourse on Floyd’s Death”. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies 16/4 (December 2020), 1854-1868. https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.851011.
JAMA Alaghbary GS. Looting leads to shooting: A pragma-dialectical analysis of President Trump’s argumentative discourse on Floyd’s death. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies. 2020;16:1854–1868.
MLA Alaghbary, Gibreel Sadeq. “Looting Leads to Shooting: A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis of President Trump’s Argumentative Discourse on Floyd’s Death”. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, vol. 16, no. 4, 2020, pp. 1854-68, doi:10.17263/jlls.851011.
Vancouver Alaghbary GS. Looting leads to shooting: A pragma-dialectical analysis of President Trump’s argumentative discourse on Floyd’s death. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies. 2020;16(4):1854-68.