”I’ve never been politically correct – truthfully it takes far too much time and can often make it more difficult to achieve total victory” : A Critical Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump's speeches during United States presidential election of 2016

This study, ​“‘I’ve never been politically correct – truthfully it takes far too much time and can often make it more difficult to achieve total victory’ - a Critical Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump's speeches during United States presidential election of 2016”​, examines the political communication through linguistic strategies throughout 10 of Donald Trump’s speeches from the Trump rallies during the election year 2016. In order to serve that purpose, this thesis investigates which ones of the discourses that dominates the republican agenda in this context. ​Accordingly to the Critical Discourse Analysis the aim is also to see whether the worldview in Trumps speeches is constructed or deconstructed. The study is based on a theoretical framework with theories about social constructionism, nationalism and populism. A quantitative content analysis was made through the online text tool “Textometrica” in order to see Trumps main discourses. The qualitative content analysis was made through Norman Faircloughs three-dimensional model for a Critical Discourse Analysis. According to the analysis of this study, the five main discourses are ​Establishment, Trump, USA, Immigration ​and​ Work​. Around these discourses, Donald Trump’s main strategy is constructing an opposition between “us” and “them”, where “us” consist with Trump himself and the american people, and “them” includes the establishment, other countries and immigrants. Based on these opponents, and through disparaging “them” in a strategy, here called “the thief-strategy”, Trump constructs a reality where “us” is the better half and he appears as the hero in this duo. In conclusion, Trumps strategy in order to win the presidential election 2016 included running a political agenda characterized by populism which later on can lead to a polarized community, and a dissatisfied american people who will be open for change and a new leader