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Social Evaluation as a Persuasive Resource in Political Discourses: Clinton vs. Trump

ABSTRACT

Political changes have been intensifying debates about how certain discourses set agendas and influence voters. In this scope, Critical Discourse Analysis, Systemic-Functional Linguistics, and together with the theoretical and methodological framework of Appraisal have proved to be successful in investigating ideology in texts, as well as addressing topics such as political polarization. Therefore, this research aims to analyze the Appraisal’s social evaluation as an ideological and persuasive device in Clinton-Trump nomination speeches in 2016. Outcomes raise awareness over rhetorical strategies that can lead voters to the preference of certain sets of values & beliefs. Results revealed that then-candidates used different strategies to persuade electors by constructing negative (Trump) and positive (Clinton) ideological discursive approaches by applying social evaluation as a pivotal rhetorical strategy in those speeches.

KEYWORDS:
Systemic-Functional Linguistics; Social evaluation; Critical Discourse Analysis; Appraisal; Pragmatics

RESUMO

Mudanças políticas têm intensificado os debates sobre como certos discursos estabelecem agendas e influenciam eleitores. Nesse escopo, a Análise Crítica do Discurso e a Linguística Sistêmico-Funcional, juntamente com o arcabouço teórico-metodológico da Avaliatividade, demonstraram ser bem-sucedidas na investigação da ideologia em textos, bem como na abordagem de tópicos como a polarização política. Portanto, a presente pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar a avaliação social da Teoria da Avaliatividade como um dispositivo ideológico e persuasivo nos discursos de nomeação de Clinton e Trump, em 2016. Os resultados enfatizam usos de estratégias retóricas que podem levar os eleitores à preferência de certos conjuntos de valores e crenças. A análise revelou que, naqueles discursos, os candidatos usaram estratégias diferentes para persuadir os eleitores, construindo abordagens discursivas ideológicas negativas (Trump) e positivas (Clinton), aplicando a avaliação social como estratégia retórica central.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
Linguística Sistêmico-Funcional; Avaliação social; Análise Crítica do Discurso; Avaliatividade; Pragmática

Introduction

The American presidential election of 2016 occurred on November 8, 2016. The 58th quadrennial American presidential election had the Republican candidate businessman Mr. Donald Trump beat the Democratic candidate former Secretary of State Mrs. Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump took office as the 45th President “despite being considerably outspent in the general election; losing the national popular vote by over two percentage points but still winning the Electoral College, something that has happened rarely in American history” (SABATO et al., 2017SABATO, L.; KONDIK, K.; SKELLEY, G. (ed.). Trumped: The 2016 Election That Broke All the Rules. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017., p.7).

Following the election’s unforeseen outcome, protests broke out across the United States with some street clashes continuing for several days. On the other hand, President Trump also received support for his triumph. News all over the country and from the world over aired clear indications that the country was poles apart. Beyond the election, questions at the core of ideological views of candidates were a sign that polarization in the United States had reached its zenith.

Values and beliefs are at the core of political polarization. As stated by Moreno (2019, p.1)MORENO, A. Political Cleavages: Issues, Parties, and the Consolidation of Democracy. London: Routledge , 2019., more than the left-right axis of political competition, the “new politics” is defined by “the salience of particular concerns among the mass electorates”; and “new issues”,

or issues of the ‘new politics’ - such as environmentalism, minority rights, feminist issues, and gay and lesbian expressions - have affected not only the meaning of party competition but also the social basis of party support.

More recently, there is an overall perception that President Trump’s election has intensified the division in the US territory (PILKINGTON, 2017PILKINGTON, E. Trump's first 100 days. One nation, two Trumps: America as divided as ever after first 100 days. The Guardian . 2017. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/27/donald-trump-first-100-days-president-ohio-voters. Access on: 25 Sept. 2019.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017...
; SHI et al., 2019SHI, F.; TEPLITSKIY, M.; DUEDE, E.; EVANS, J. A. The wisdom of polarized crowds. Nature Human Behaviour, v. 3, n. 4, p.329, 2019. ). It is reasonable to say that Clinton-Trump race represented a major ideological rupture in the American society, that later was reflected in other nations. Many factors have to be considered when judging the success or failure of political candidates; fact is that discourse is an important aspect of the equation since it embeds their ideologies. Van Dijk (2002, p.1) posits that politicians usually have at least two ideologies, a professional one to function as politicians, and “the socio-political ideologies they adhere to”. The latter identifies them as members of parties or social groups: “conservative and progressive politicians, socialists and neoliberals, Christian-democrats, greens, nationalists and racists, and so on. And it is likely that these ideologies will show up and combine in the discourse of politicians.”

In the spectrum of political agendas and discourses, it is not a goal of this study to provide a sense of the rightness or wrongness of any political orientation. I intend to shed some light on some of Trump’s and Clinton’s discursive strategies by analyzing one speech from each candidate. More specifically, the corpus is composed by the two speeches sustained during their nomination in their respective parties’ conventions: The Republican National Committee (hereafter RNC) - Trump, and The Democratic National Committee (henceforth DNC) - Clinton. 1 1 Parties conventions are ceremonies in which delegates of both parties traditionally choose their nominees for President and Vice President of the United States. In 2016, Republicans held RNC on July 18-21, 2016, at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. By its side, DNC was held at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from July 25 - 28, 2016.

Conventions have become important instruments for candidates to shape their images through long speeches loaded with ideological meaning. Decker sees the conventions with “a specific purpose: to sell or redefine” (2016, p.2)DECKER, E. 2016. Democratic National Convention, the Final Day: 'When there are no Ceilings, the Sky's the Limit,' Clinton Says. LA Times. 2016. Available at: http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-democratic-convention-2016-live-21-thoughts-about-the-republican-and-1469767897-htmlstory.html. Access on: 20 Aug. 2019.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/t...
. For that reason, in this study, the focus will be given to social evaluation and how efficient it is for political messages from a rhetoric standpoint. Moreover, this paper aims to analyze the Clinton-Trump nomination speech to address how, due to a cumulative groove of semantic patterning, the target audience is dynamically positioned to interpret each candidate’s ideological stance through persuasion deployed to interact with their electors and set ideological agendas.

To achieve the previously mentioned goals, this paper draws on underpinnings of Systemic-Functional Linguistics (hereafter SFL) (HALLIDAY, 1994HALLIDAY, M.A.K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2. ed. London: Edward Arnold, 1994.) together with Critical Discourse Analysis (hereafter CDA). Moreover, I apply Martin’s (2000)MARTIN, J. R. Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. theoretical and methodological framework of Appraisal to show how interpersonal resources can be strategically deployed in discourse to shape interpersonal relations (power and engagement) and political identities. From that common ground, the then-candidates were able to set their agendas whilst establishing their political views to that specific audience and context.

Next, I will discuss the combination of SFL and CDA to evince ideology in text. Authors from this tradition (e.g. FAIRCLOUGH, 1992FAIRCLOUGH, N. Discourse and Text: Linguistic and Intertextual Analysis within Discourse Analysis. Discourse & Society. v.3, n. 2, pp.193-217, 1992.; FOWLER, 2013FOWLER, R. Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge , 2013.; WHITE, 2006WHITE, P. R. Evaluative Semantics and Ideological Positioning in Journalistic Discourse. In: LASSEN, I.; STRUNCK, J.; VESTERGAARD, T. (ed.). Mediating Ideology in Text and Image: Ten critical studies. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2006. pp.37-67.) postulate that SFL is an efficient theoretical-methodological approach to study ideological complexes in texts once it considers language as a social functional phenomenon.

1 CDA and SFL: A Critical Analysis of Ideology

As part of the political practices when candidates engage in campaigns, political discourses construct (and are constructed by) ideologies. Van Dijk (2006, p.115)Van DIJK, T. A. Discourse and manipulation. Discourse & Society , v. 17, n. 3, pp.359-383, 2006. understands ideologies “sociocognitively defined as social representations of social groups, and more specifically, as ‘axiomatic’ principles of such representations”. Sustaining social groups self-images, ideologies organize their “identity, actions, aims, norm and values and resources, as well as its relations to other social groups” (van DIJK, 2006, p.115).

Furthermore, from a socio-cognitive perspective, “ideologies are defined as basic systems of fundamental social cognitions and organizing the attitudes and other social representations shared by members of groups” (van DIJK, 1995, p.1). Sociopolitical or sociocultural ideologies are intertwined with discourse (LI, 2010LI, J. Transitivity and Lexical Cohesion: Press Representations of a Political Disaster and its Actors. Journal of Pragmatics , v. 42, n. 12, pp.3444-3458, 2010.; van DIJK, 2002). A basic premise of CDA is that language in use implies ideological meanings while restraints the use of language and meanings involved (FOWLER, 2013FOWLER, R. Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge , 2013.).

According to Fuoli (2015)FUOLI, M. 2015. Combining APPRAISAL and CDA in the Analysis of Corporate Discourse. In: 42nd International Systemic Functional Congress, Aachen, Germany, 2015., the SFL-based CDA has tended to focus on investigating the ideological implications for patterns in discourse. The adoption of SFL is commonly done by the much-adopted CDA in critical text analysis (e.g. DEDAIC; NELSON, 2012DEDAIC, M. N.; NELSON, D. N. (ed.). At War with Words. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012. vol. 10.), as long as conceived necessary when the issue of ideology is at stake.

In Halliday’s SFL (1994)HALLIDAY, M.A.K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2. ed. London: Edward Arnold, 1994., language in use deals with the mechanism of text structure, function and meaning of language. Having a pragmatic approach, the author proposes an analysis of language in social contexts where a particular lexicogrammatical choice is made under the influence of the social and cultural contexts. For SFL, language is structured to build simultaneously three types of meanings (metafunctions): ideational, interpersonal and textual. This semantic simultaneity stems from the fact that language is a semiotic system, a conventioned code, organized as a set of choices at the intermediate level of coding, the so-called lexicogrammar (HALLIDAY, 1994HALLIDAY, M.A.K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2. ed. London: Edward Arnold, 1994.).

Plenty of studies (e.g. WHITE, 2006WHITE, P. R. Evaluative Semantics and Ideological Positioning in Journalistic Discourse. In: LASSEN, I.; STRUNCK, J.; VESTERGAARD, T. (ed.). Mediating Ideology in Text and Image: Ten critical studies. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2006. pp.37-67.; FAIRCLOUGH, 2003FAIRCLOUGH, N. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. East Sussex: Psychology Press, 2003.) apply SFL’s functional view of linguistic choices as indexes of meanings aligned with CDA premises: both are guided by the underlying assumption that linguistic forms and choices express ideological meanings. SFL provides an analytical tool for the systematic examination of power relations in the text, as well as the motivations, purposes, assumptions, and interests of text producers. With its focus on the selection, categorization, and order of meaning in the microstructure of the sentence - rather than only in the macro level of discourse -, SFL is especially useful for a systematic analysis of linguistic traits at the micro-level of discourse and a critical insight about the organization of meanings in a text.

In essence, SFL is a multi-perspectival model, designed to provide analysts with complementary lens for interpreting language in use. SFL can be coupled with CDA for the organization of meanings in metafunctions: (1) textual, related to the organization of both ideational and interpersonal meanings; (2) ideational, meanings associated with the representation of the “state-of-affairs” (HALLIDAY, 1994HALLIDAY, M.A.K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2. ed. London: Edward Arnold, 1994.); and (3) interpersonal, dealing with the negotiation in social relations. In regard of the latter, the development of researches of other systems (e.g. involvement, evidentiality, tense, among others) has expanded the role of the interpersonal metafunction and the attention devoted to Appraisal.

At the core of interpersonal metafunction (SFL), Appraisal is a discursive-semantic system that provides a model to investigate evaluation in texts and its cumulative semantic patterning. Since Martin’s groundbreaking research (2000)MARTIN, J. R. Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000., studies have been associating CDA and Appraisal to unveil ideological nuances in political discourses (WODAK, 1999WODAK, R. Critical Discourse Analysis at the End of the 20th Century. Research on Language & Social Interaction, v. 32, n. (1-2), pp.185-193, 1999.).

Some other studies and frameworks also approached ideology in text. For example, Van Dijk’s ideological square (1998; 2002) investigates how underlying ideologies - and the social attitudes and personal opinions influenced by them - are generally polarized, and can be organized in a combination of general discursive strategies in all levels of discourse analysis of opposing pairs, emphasizing (positively) and de-emphasizing (negatively), respectively, the ingroup (“Us”) versus the outgroup (“Them”); also based on studies of Social Psychology (TAJFEL, 1978TAJFEL, H. Individuals and Groups in Social Psychology. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, v.18, n. 2, pp.183-190, 1979.). Likewise, De Fina (1995), Fetzer (2014)FETZER, A. ‘Judge us on what we do’: The Strategic Use of Collective We in British Political Discourse. In: PAVLIDOU, T. S. (ed.) Constructing Collectivity: ‘We’ across Language and Contexts. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2014. pp.331-350 and Kranert (2017)KRANERT, M. ‘Today I offer you, and we offer the country a new vision’. The strategic use of first person pronouns in party conference speeches of the Third Way. Discourse & Society , v. 28, n. 2, pp.182-203, 2018. deal with discourses of the ingroup vs. the outgroup through pronominal choices.

Wodak (1999, p.33)WODAK, R. Critical Discourse Analysis at the End of the 20th Century. Research on Language & Social Interaction, v. 32, n. (1-2), pp.185-193, 1999. discuss political discursive polarization and provide a few notions thereof: (1) “outgroup” is conceived as the “enemy”, and it is defined in terms of difference, also oftentimes derided or criminalized; (2) “We-discourse” builds a “good-or-bad” dichotomy (ingroup vs. outgroup) based on assumptions of moral quality and moral character; (3) recurrent positive self-image of the ingroup; (4) scapegoating; and (5) exaggeration of the negativity when referring to the outgroup sayings and behaviors.

Another recent wave of “we vs. them” type of studies weighs on the flourishing of right-wing and left-wing populism (e.g. BLOCK; NEGRINE, 2017BLOCK, E.; NEGRINE, R. The Populist Communication Style: Toward a Critical Framework. International Journal of Communication, v.11, pp.20-27, 2017.). According to Wodak (2015, pp.1-2)WODAK, R. The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2015., populism is different from other rhetorical devices because “it does not only relate to the form of rhetoric but to its specific contents”. She coined two concepts: (1) the “politics of fear”, based on the “us vs. them” argument, and (2) the “arrogance of ignorance”, based on a common-sense and anti-intellectualism appealing attitude. Although these two rhetoric devices of populist discourses are regularly applied in political contexts, this paper has not the intention of depicting populism - considered a broad topic within different fields and with no agreement in the literature in this regard. Nonetheless, March (2017, p.282)MARCH, L. Left and right populism compared: The British case. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, v.19, n. 2, pp.282-303, 2017. points out that “host ideology is more important than populism per se”, and “what is often called ‘thin’ or ‘mainstream’ populism’ is not populism but demoticism (closeness to ordinary people)”, and advises analysts not to “label parties ‘populist’ just because their rhetoric is demotic”. In this line of thought, as showed latter in analysis, both Trump and Clinton apply different persuasive strategies based on demoticism and aligned with the strategies of “politics of fear” and “arrogance of ignorance”.

Li (2010)LI, J. Transitivity and Lexical Cohesion: Press Representations of a Political Disaster and its Actors. Journal of Pragmatics , v. 42, n. 12, pp.3444-3458, 2010. draws on Van Dijk's (1995; 1997) approach to reveal how social practices are linked to ideological meanings in texts. A similar approach will be adopted in this study to evince the use of the rhetoric device of social evaluation to address questions like: does political discourse, regardless of whether it is disguised under “objective” expressions, favor certain values of attitude? Is it true that this persuasive resource coupled with underlying culture may lead to the preference of certain sets of values of attitude? Do the same discursive parameters apply in all cultural contexts, taking into account the class setting of the voters?

Before investigating the corpus to address the aforementioned questions, the next two sections will discuss Appraisal as a much-adopted system for political discourse analysis.

2 Appraisal: A Functional Model of Linguistic Analysis

The Appraisal was devised by Martin (2000)MARTIN, J. R. Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. and developed by collaborators such as Christie and Martin (2005)CHRISTIE, F.; MARTIN, J. R. Genre and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School. London: A&C Black, 2005., Scherer, Schorr and Johnstone (2001)SCHERER, K. R.; SCHORR, A.; JOHNSTONE, T. (ed.). Appraisal Processes in Emotion: Theory, Methods, Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press , 2001., Macken-Horarik (2003)MACKEN-HORARIK, M. Appraisal and the special instructiveness of narrative. Text-The Hague then Amsterdam then Berlin , v. 23, n. 2, pp.285-312, 2003., among others. According to Martin (2000, p.145)MARTIN, J. R. Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000., “appraisal deals with the semantic resources used to negotiate emotions, judgements and appreciations. They are resources used to expand and commit to these evaluations”, being the term coined to denominate all evaluative uses of language, including those in which speakers/writers adopt particular views or ideological positions.

Martin and White (2005, p.61)MARTIN, J. R.; WHITE, P. R. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. conceive realization as the idea that language is a stratified semiotic system involving cycles of coding at different levels of abstraction. Besides phonology and lexicogrammar, abstraction is a level of coding, adds Martin (2005)MARTIN, J. R.; WHITE, P. R. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005., to refer to discourse semantics. Abstraction emphasizes the fact that it is concerned with meaning beyond the clause (with text, co-text and context). This level is concerned with various aspects of discourse organization, including the question of how people, places and things are introduced in the text and kept track of once there (identification); how events and states of affairs are linked to one another in terms of time, cause, contrast and similarity; how participants are related as part to whole and sub-class to class (ideation); how turns are organized into exchanges of goods, services and information (negotiation); and how evaluation is established, amplified, targeted and sourced (appraisal). Martin’s underpinnings are placed in discourse semantics because it deals with different levels of abstraction beyond the lexicogrammar, thus decoding meanings in the discursive flow in an ample variety of systems. The realization of an attitude tends to emerge from a phase of discourse more prominently, irrespective of grammatical boundaries. Hence, discourse semantic “cannot be seen simply as a list of cohesive ties relating one grammatical unit to another, but as a further level of structure in its own right” (MARTIN, 2014MARTIN, J.R. Evolving Systemic Functional Linguistics: Beyond the Clause. Functional Linguistics, v. 1, n. 3, pp.1-24, 2014., p.9), expressing the need to move out of lexicogrammar to generalize the evaluative meaning common to this kind of scatter.

Following Martin (2000)MARTIN, J. R. Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000., Appraisal can be located as an interpersonal system at the level of discourse semantics where it co-articulates interpersonal meaning in three subsystems for attitudinal positioning: attitude, engagement and graduation, all of which deal with evaluative interpersonal meanings of participants, processes and circumstances (core elements to represent the experience). Attitude relates to evaluations of emotional/affective values of interactants, and is, in turn, divided into subsystems of affect, judgement and appreciation.2 2 “Similarly, positive and negative valuations of something imply positive and negative judgements of the capacity of someone to create or perform. But we consider it useful to distinguish between judgements of behavior and evaluations of things.” (MARTIN; WHITE, 2005, p.27). Martin (2000, p.173) defines them as: (1) affect analyses emotions canonically in the grammatical frame; (2) judgement analyses attitudes about characters to sanction or censor behaviors canonically in the grammatical frame; and (3) appreciation analyses attitudes about texts, performances and natural phenomena (i.e. things).

Moreover, Appraisal’s attitude “reveals the expression of emotions by affection and its ‘institutionalizations’” (MARTIN, 2000MARTIN, J. R. Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000., p.147), id est, “judgement is affection to control behavior (what we should or should not do) and appreciation is affection recontextualized to administer “tastes” (which things are worse or better)” (MARTIN, 2000MARTIN, J. R.; WHITE, P. R. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005., p.62). Ethical and moral values (rules and regulations) are achieved by judgement, while aesthetic values (criterion and quota) are achieved by appreciation. The other two subtypes of Appraisal, engagement and graduation, organize force and focus of utterances and the intersubjectivity notion by the use of epistemic markers (HYLAND, 1998HYLAND, K. Persuasion and Context: The Pragmatics of Academic Metadiscourse. Journal of Pragmatics, v. 30, n. 4, pp.437-455, 1998.) to construe an epistemic positioning, evidentiality, intensity and other combinations. In this paper, I will focus on the attitude subsystems since they provide more substantial data to prove the argument proposed.

Lastly, other than being positive or negative attitude, two basic types of Appraisal can occur separately or in combination: (1) inscribed - explicit through evaluative lexicon and syntax (epithets, relational attributes or comment adjuncts); and (2) evoked - implicit through lexical enrichment as, for example, in figurative language (MARTIN, 2000MARTIN, J. R. Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.).

In political discourses, Appraisal enhances the metadiscourse (HYLAND, 2018HYLAND, K. Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.) - not conceived as the “discourse about discourse”, but a notion that embodies the idea that communication is more than just the exchange of information, goods or services. It “involves the personalities, attitudes and assumptions of those who are communicating” (HYLAND, 2018, p.3). Metadiscourse focuses on how “both interactive and textual resources are used to create and maintain relations with readers” (AGUILAR, 2008AGUILAR, M. Metadiscourse in Academic Speech: A Relevance-Theoretic Approach. Bern: Peter Lang, 2008., p.87), in a way “in which context and linguistic meaning are integrated to allow readers to derive intended interpretations” (HYLAND, 2018HYLAND, K. Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing. London: Bloomsbury, 2018., p.437).

According to Aguilar (2008)AGUILAR, M. Metadiscourse in Academic Speech: A Relevance-Theoretic Approach. Bern: Peter Lang, 2008., in her extensive study about metadiscourse, the “all-interpersonal” developments made by functionalists is one of the most important contributions for theories of metadiscourse so far. This tradition interweaves interactive metadiscourse (guiding the reader through the text with transitions, frames and endophoric markers, etc.) with interactional metadiscourse (involving the reader in the text with hedges, boosters, attitude markers, etc). Appraisal is, therefore, an important vector of metadiscourse.

3 Attitude: Social Evaluation as an Instantiation of Appreciation

Evaluations propagate or ramify through a text which leads to the assumption that evaluation flows through cohesive reference chains (LEMKE, 1998LEMKE, J. Multiplying Meaning. Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of Science, pp.87-113, 1998.). Sometimes these chains can be long enough that they imply subtle meanings across whole texts, which is particularly frequent in political discourses (COFFIN, 2002COFFIN, C. The Voices of History: Theorizing the Interpersponal Semantics of historical discourses. Text-The Hague then Amsterdam then Berlin-, 22(4), pp.503-528, 2002.).

Coffin and O’Halloran (2005, p.148)COFFIN, C.; O'HALLORAN, K. Finding the Global Groove: Theorising and Analysing Dynamic Reader Positioning Using APPRAISAL, Corpus and a Concordancer. Critical Discourse Studies, v. 2, n. 2, pp.143-163, 2005. had a particular interest in these “longer range cohesive propagations” (cf. LEMKE, 1998LEMKE, J. Multiplying Meaning. Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of Science, pp.87-113, 1998., p.53). According to the authors, there’s ongoing criticism to analysts who approach texts focusing on single pieces of text as a proof of a text’s ideological slant, failing to consider textual modification (cf. WIDDOWSON, 2008WIDDOWSON, H. G. Text, Context, Pretext: Critical Issues in Discourse Analysis. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. v. 12.; O’HALLORAN, 2003O'HALLORAN, K. Critical Discourse Analysis and Language Cognition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003.). Hence, Appraisal studies have been emphasizing that patterns of evaluation in parts of a text serve to construct a particular evaluative position over the course of a text (COFFIN, 2002COFFIN, C. The Voices of History: Theorizing the Interpersponal Semantics of historical discourses. Text-The Hague then Amsterdam then Berlin-, 22(4), pp.503-528, 2002.; COFFIN; O’HALLORAN, 2005; MACKEN-HORARIK, 2003MACKEN-HORARIK, M. Appraisal and the special instructiveness of narrative. Text-The Hague then Amsterdam then Berlin , v. 23, n. 2, pp.285-312, 2003.; MARTIN; ROSE, 2003MARTIN, J. R.; ROSE, D. Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2003.; DE OLIVEIRA, 2017DE OLIVEIRA, U. Ideology in Text: The Fenhedor Persona in Galician-Portuguese Love Songs of King D. Dinis. WORD, v. 63, n. 4, pp.258-274, 2017.). Coffin and O’Halloran (2005, p.149) indicated that indirect evaluations (evoked) are really common in political texts, as they exemplify:

Consider the following sentence: ‘TWO million jobs will be lost if Tony Blair signs the new EU treaty, it was feared last night.’. There is no direct Judgement on Blair’s personality here […]. However, this sentence, we would argue, functions as an indirect Judgement, since it is likely to prompt many readers to judge Blair’s action as morally irresponsible.

Indirect appraisals can only be recovered from contextual meanings in the discursive flow which imposes a standpoint for their classification and make them borderline. Martin (2000, pp.58-62)MARTIN, J. R. Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. and Martin and White (2005) discussed borderline appraisals but did not reach out perspectives of shadow areas for affect, judgement and appreciation. One of these shadow areas is the social evaluation, conceived as in the border of judgement and appreciation whereas it refers to the positive or negative of products, activities, processes or social phenomena (COFFIN; O’HALLORAN, 2005COFFIN, C.; O'HALLORAN, K. Finding the Global Groove: Theorising and Analysing Dynamic Reader Positioning Using APPRAISAL, Corpus and a Concordancer. Critical Discourse Studies, v. 2, n. 2, pp.143-163, 2005.).

As an example of social evaluation, I bring the following excerpt from an article published in the newspaper ‘The Guardian’ (2017) in which Joffe discusses the rise of rightwing parties in Europe. His position is considerably evident from the article’s title: “The right is rising and social democracy is dying across Europe - but why?”. The author uses social evaluation to disguise judgement as appreciation, as a way of graduating evaluation.

The common denominator is resentment and protest. So, think Marine Le Pen and her Front National, Geert Wilders and his Freedom party (PVV), Ukip, Donald Trump, and of course Hungary and Poland where authoritarian populists are running the governments. […] Then look farther afield. At first sight, Britain sticks out as the great exception because Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour almost edged out the Tories in the June election. Arguably, the verdict was more anti-May than pro-Labour.

Adopting Martin’s traditional evaluation model, both expressions in blue are only appreciation appraisals since they evaluate “things.”3 3 In the “Britain sticks out as the great exception”, “great” graduates appreciation in terms of force. However, readers can reach and individualize the people (politicians) who are the main target of the author’s criticism. In this sense, social evaluation seems to be the best classification in both cases. Recovered from the discursive flow, both lexical choices in italics institutionalize or group people to make a comprehensive evaluation of politicians and countries, for this reason social evaluation is a persuasion device that also propitiates a tension between ideational and interpersonal dominance over the interpretation of the categories, that is, appreciation embedding judgement as facts (e.g. “the houses are in Manhattan”) in the perspective of social groups.

Joffe sees ‘populists’ as ‘authoritarian,’ grouping Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Ukip and Donald Trump with their respective parties. Hence, when affirmed that Britain is a ‘great exception’ - also an appreciation appraisal (cf. MARTIN’S model) -, the author judges people “in command” positively. With this intent, social evaluation is applied as a powerful resource in political discourses to condense meanings in readers’ minds by constructing implied associations that would be hardly validated in judgment-type appraisals.

Social evaluations account for syllogism - a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true - as in the example: (1) Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Ukip and Donald Trump are populists; (2) Populists are authoritarian; then (3) Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Ukip and Donald Trump are authoritarian. This type of deductive reasoning combines appreciation and judgement to create social evaluation: a subsystem4 4 See Martin and White (2005) to understand how Attitude appraisals can be sub-categorized. of appreciation that associates persons, mindsets, parties, ideologies as the same “thing”.

4 Methodology

As stated before, the corpus of the present study is composed of two speeches, one from Donald Trump and the other one from Hillary Clinton. Both speeches are particularly relevant since they were held during their respective nominations as candidates for the presidential race at the time (RNC on July 18 - 21, 2016 and DNC on July 25 - 28, 2016).

As the procedures adopted in analysis, the then-candidates’ nomination speeches were subdivided into three sections representing the first, second and third initial moments of the candidates’ speeches (three 500-word parts from their beginnings - Sections 1, 2 and 3). This division is justified by the intention to analyze how candidates established their rhetorical strategy and set the tone of their discourses from their beginning on. Next, I mapped the persuasive strategies that each candidate applied in each speech section based on Appraisal and focusing on social evaluation. Appraisals were divided into categories: Affect, Judgement, Appreciation, and Appreciation - Social Evaluation.

In the quantitative part of the research, a radar chart was created based on the appraisal occurrences in each candidate speech (divided into the three aforementioned sections). The radar chart (also known as web chart, spider chart, or star chart) is a graphical method of displaying multivariate data in the form of a two-dimensional chart of three or more quantitative variables represented on axes starting from the same point. According to Kaczynski et al. (2008)KACZYNSKI, D.; WOOD, L.; HARDING, A. Using Radar Charts with Qualitative Evaluation: Techniques to Assess Change in Blended Learning. Active Learning in Higher Education, v. 9, n. 1, pp.23-41, 2008., radar charts are primarily suited for strikingly showing “outliers” and “commonality”, or when one chart is greater in every variable than another, and used for ordinal measurements, wherefore they provided a visual representation of how much each candidate applied positive and negativeappraisals, as well as their proportion and distribution throughout the first segment of the nomination speeches.

For the qualitative part of the research, I focused on appraisals as rhetoric devices for persuasion aiming at preserving and changing electors’ attitudes or behaviors toward relevant ideas of political agendas. The analysis demonstrates how each candidate invested on certain values of attitude and approaches to portray their ideological views. They adopted different strategies for appraisal deploying in their speeches’ openings combined with persuasion based on the notions of ingroup (“Us”) vs. the outgroup (“Them”). In the next sections, I demonstrate how social evaluation was effective in the last chairperson race in USA (2016).

5 Hillary Clinton: A Discourse of Positivity

Hillary Clinton herself states in her book (CLINTON, 2017CLINTON, H. R. What Happened. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017.) that her campaign motto “Stronger together” bears a lot of information about the image she wanted to construct of herself. In a sense, it summarizes the complex ideological activity marketers may have wanted to associate to the Democrat candidate, in her words in Annex A Annex A "Stronger together" motto: "We had settled on Stronger Together as our theme for the general election after a lot of thought and discussion. [...]. My team in Brooklyn had started with three basic contrasts we wanted to draw with Trump. He was risky and unqualified, but I was steady and ready to deliver results on Day One. He was a fraud who was in it only for himself, but I was in it for children and families and would make our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top. He was divisive, while I would work to bring the country together. The challenge was to find a way to marry all three together in a memorable slogan that reflected my values and record. Stronger Together did that better than anything else we could think of." (CLINTON, 2017, p.23). . As a result, analysis of Clinton’s DNC speech showed a purposeful overly positive discourse that invested heavily on positive self-evaluation emulated mainly by appraisals of the social evaluation type.

Chart 1 Annex B Chart 1 appraisal mapping in Clinton’s speech Source: Author (and 2 - next section, for Trump), in Annex B Annex B Chart 1 appraisal mapping in Clinton’s speech Source: Author , represents how appraisal was mapped in Clinton’s speech. For the charts reading, speeches were divided into three 500-word parts from their beginnings - Sections 1, 2 and 3. The background circles were subdivided into three sections representing the first, second and third initial moments of candidates’ speeches, and into types of appraisals (Affect, Judgement, Appreciation, Appreciation - Social Evaluation). The size of the blue and red stain represents, respectively, the proportion of use of positive and negative appraisals while stains’ ranges point to the types of appraisals. This proportion is based on appraisals occurrences in numbers. For example, the broader stain area in Chart 1 Annex B Chart 1 appraisal mapping in Clinton’s speech Source: Author (Section 3 - Apr - Social Evaluation) represents the use of 29 appraisals of this type in Section 3.

Regarding the particularities of Clinton’ evaluations (Chart 1 Annex B Chart 1 appraisal mapping in Clinton’s speech Source: Author - Annex B Annex B Chart 1 appraisal mapping in Clinton’s speech Source: Author ), the candidate starts evaluating more constantly in Sections 2 and 3. The blue area in the Chart 1 Annex B Chart 1 appraisal mapping in Clinton’s speech Source: Author illustrates a highly positive stance (tone), generally given by social evaluations in all sections. For example, in Section 1, Clinton offers a guideline of what will be her discursive strategy:5 5 red = JUDGEMENT; blue = AFFECT; green = APPRECIATION; + ve = positive; - ve = negative.

What a remarkable week it's been. We heard the man from Hope (+ve), Bill Clinton. And theman of Hope (+ ve), Barack Obama. America is stronger (+ve) because of President Obama's leadership (+ ve), and I'm better (+ ve) because of hisfriendship (+ve).

In this excerpt, Clinton’s discursive strategy and ideological approach go through the balance of positive judgement and appreciation to persuade. Her reasoning: Bill Clinton is someone who personalizes the Democrats’ values (“the man from Hope” - positive judgement). Barack Obama succeeds Clinton and also personalizes the Democrats’ values (“man of Hope” - positive judgement). As a consequence, “America is stronger” (positive appreciation), which comes as a result of Clinton + Obama. Then, Hillary uses positive affect to talk about herself, and, at the same time, modalizes the utterance by giving credit to Obama and Bill Clinton. Clinton’s persuasive strategy enhances emotion as an effort to present herself as a humble person. Besides, a depiction of her discourse, in terms of affect, reveals a highly positive stance, mainly toward members of the Democrat party (Table 1).

Table 1
Positive Affect in Section 1 (Clinton)

Moreover, there are only two more affect occurrences in Section 3: positively to herself (“I believe that with all my heart.”), and negatively to Trump (“And yes, where love trumps hate”). This perceived emotional stance of Clinton toward party members is, as we are going to see in Trump’s speech analysis, drastically different for the Republican candidate who does not invest on affect as a persuasive resource.

Judgement appraisals reinforce the same tone for Clinton. For example, in Section 1, she evaluates positively Bill Clinton (1), Obama (1), Joe Biden (1), Michele Obama (1), Bernie Sanders (1) and Tim Kaine (3). The Democrat prefers to use evoked evaluation to construct positive judgement through lexical enrichment, as it is in the example (1), in italics: (1) “Tim Kaine - you're soon going to understand why the people of Virginia keep promoting him: from city council and mayor, to Governor, and now Senator. And he'll make our whole country proud as our Vice President”.

In Sections 2 and 3, Clinton establishes a kind of “character battle” against Trump. There are nine (9) positive judgements to herself and thirteen (13) negative ones related to the Republican. Although a clear critical positioning is assumed by Clinton, this figure could be way more negative, as it was Trump’s strategy (next section). Example two (2) gives an idea of how the Democrat established this debate: (2) “Sometimes the people at this podium are new to the national stage (negative judgement to Trump). I'm not one of those people (positive judgement to herself).”

As for the appreciation, Clinton is, again, positive. DNC (1), America (1), The Democrat Party (3), and The State of New York (1) are all evaluated positively.

From all types of appraisals, social evaluations were probably the most emblematic for both candidates. Clinton uses them to characterize her candidate’s persona based on values socially shared among Democrats. Both candidates try to create social ethoses nurtured on established sets of ideas, which are crystallized enough to be evaluated as “things” (appreciation). On the other hand, the primary (or seldom secondary) target of their criticism remains the “other” candidate (judgement). For reasons like that, Coffin and O’Halloran (2005)COFFIN, C.; O'HALLORAN, K. Finding the Global Groove: Theorising and Analysing Dynamic Reader Positioning Using APPRAISAL, Corpus and a Concordancer. Critical Discourse Studies, v. 2, n. 2, pp.143-163, 2005. consider this type of appraisal on the border of Martin’s initial model. The example three (3) brings one of the many social evaluations voiced by Clinton (italics - evoked appraisal): (3) “So don't let anyone tell you that our country is weak. We're not”.

To shed some light on this interpretation, I named “We-Americans” (ingroup) and “They-Americans” (outgroup) as the two ideological islands (or blocks) that candidates attempted to put themselves in, or reject (cf. van DIJK, 2002). Example 3 shows Clinton using “anyone” (exclusive) and “we” (inclusive) to set apart social groups. These “social islands” share values, beliefs, and a well-established set of ideas that Clinton and her target audience reject (anyone = Republicans) and align to (we = Democrats). Therefore, the ingroup and the outgroup perception for each candidate is different: for Clinton, the ingroup (inclusive) is We-Americans = We-Democrats, while the outgroup (exclusive) is They-Americans = They-Republicans. For Trump, the ingroup (inclusive) is We-Americans = We-Republicans while the outgroup (exclusive) is They-Americans = They-Democrats.

Social evaluation became more frequent and condensed (in the discursive flow) as Clinton’s discourse went on. For instance, a longer range of cohesive propagation is built by Clinton in Section 3 (excerpt from Annex C Annex C Excerpt from Clinton's DNC discourse: "Don't let anyone tell you we don't have what it takes. We do. And most of all, don't believe anyone who says: "I alone can fix it."Those were actually Donald Trump's words in Cleveland. And they should set off alarm bells for all of us. Really? I alone can fix it? Isn't he forgetting? Troops on the front lines. Police officers and fire fighters who run toward danger. Doctors and nurses who care for us. Teachers who change lives. Entrepreneurs who see possibilities in every problem. Mothers who lost children to violence and are building a movement to keep other kids safe. He's forgetting every last one of us. Americans don't say: "I alone can fix it." We say: "We'll fix it together." Remember: Our Founders fought a revolution and wrote a Constitution so America would never be a nation where one person had all the power.". ). This excerpt, in Table 3, reveals how social evaluation targets (in italics) Democrats with positive social evaluation and Republicans with negative social evaluation throughout the discursive flow (1 to 5). It is important to notice that Clinton refers to the ingroup as embedded in social evaluation, that is, she is associating Americans with Democrat values and beliefs: “We-Americans” equals “We-Democrats” (ingroup) so to speak.

Table 3
Social evaluation in Clinton's discourse
(ideological themes of unity and dissention of Americans)

In this example, by entangling evaluations of affection, judgment and appreciation, Clinton applies social evaluation to create an echoic evaluation of “us” vs. “them”, which is erected on assumed and projected (hypothetically built) ideological categories of Americans: the ones that are better, the ingroup (We-Americans = We-Democrats) and the worse ones, the outgroup (They-Americans = They-Republicans). This type of evaluation establishes a metadiscourse and leads the audience to set apart social groups. Lexicon items as “troops”, “firefighters” and “police officers” are apparently neutral, but bring an implied cumulative interpersonal meaning, for example, “Doctors and nurses who care for us” (= Democrat doctors and nurses) stand against “a nation where one person had all the power” (= the nation of Republicans, the rejected outgroup). Therefore, these appraisals seem to be better classified as social evaluation (and not only appreciation - “nation”), whereas implied meanings of nation (thing), Republicans (social group) and Trump (individual) put them all aligned and grouped as the target. Primary and secondary targets may vary to each person’s discretion based on his/her point-of-view, context and ideological background.

Then, in this case, evaluations of affect (e.g. “Mothers who lost children to violence”) and judgement (e.g. “Americans don't say: “I alone can fix it”) complement implying meanings to discuss a greater ideological theme of “unity and dissention” of Americans (Republicans vs. Democrats), and other co-related ones.6 6 Clinton discussed varied themes in her speech, namely, political platform, Country’s foundation and history, unity and dissention, world dangers, Economy, Immigration, Religion, Terrorism, Education, and Family.

Finally, as the most prominent trace in Clinton’s persuasive strategy (cf. van DIJK’S ideological square), she is overly positive discussing ideological themes. Clinton opts to emphasize more the ingroup with positive appraisals (9 in Section 1, 34 in Section 2, 29 in Section 3), rather than de-emphasize the outgroup with negative ones (1 in Section 1, 4 in Section 2, 4 in Section 3).

6 Donald Trump: A Discourse of Negativity

Trump’s campaign motto “Make America Great Again” implies the message that America is not great “now”. This reasoning anchors the Republican discursive strategy, thus, contrarily to Clintons’ discourse of positivity, Trump’s speech invests more on negative appraisals of social evaluations. As can be seen from Chart 2 Annex D Chart 2 appraisal mapping in Trump’s speech Source: Author , in Annex D Annex D Chart 2 appraisal mapping in Trump’s speech Source: Author , Trump evaluates more than the Democrat (colored area representing 154 appraisals against 136 from Clinton), being highly negative in social evaluations (red stain: 91 negative appraisals against 23 from Clinton). In his discursive strategy throughout the speech, Trump opts to focus on the alleged turnaround caused by the Democrat takeover on The White House.

Diagram 1, from the excerpt of Annex E Annex E Excerpt from Trump's RNC discourse: "Let's review the record. In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map. Libya was cooperating. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was under control. After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have? ISIS has spread across the region, and the world. Libya is in ruins, and our Ambassador and his staff were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers. Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim brotherhood, forcing the military to retake control. Iraq is in chaos. Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war and a refugee crisis that now threatens the West. After fifteen years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before. This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and weakness." (Section 3 of Trump’s discourse), illustrates the use of a recurrent discursive strategy of his: the positive evaluation of the “pre-Hillary” time/people associated to the negative evaluation “After four years of Hillary Clinton”. Arrows indicate the discursive flow throughout the reading in Diagram 1. In the excerpt:

Diagram 1:
Trump’s discursive strategy

  • - positive appreciation is in blue (ingroup);

  • - negative appreciation is in red (outgroup); then,

  • - Trump provides a sanction as a result of this process: the “legacy of Hillary Clinton”.

Trump’s strategy of using appreciation rather than affect or judgement strengthened his criticism by constructing a “state-of-things” validation for his argument. Despite the debatable accountability of Clinton to that situation, negative evaluation amount by targeting the Democrat candidate in evoked judgements: Clinton can be only established as the target through lexical enrichment in the discursive flow. A depiction of Trump’s speech in terms of affect, judgement and appreciation reveals similar results, implying he is overly negative, preferring to de-emphasize more the outgroup (They-Americans = They-Democrats) with negative evaluations (cf. van DIJK’s [1998] ideological square), as I analyze next in detail.

Affect is barely used by Trump. From the only three occurrences in all sections, two of them are related to Sarah Root, a girl that was then-recently murdered (“…an innocent young girl”; “their amazing daughter). Distinctively than Clinton who used 15 affect evaluations, Trump’s initial sayings shift away from the emotional appealing.

For judgement, in all Sections, Trump is more evident than Clinton to establish the once referred “character battle”. Positive judgement appraisals to himself (18) and negative judgement appraisals to Clinton (17) are complemented by 10 negative inscribed and evoked judgement appraisals to Obama, a rhetoric strategy of exploitation of crises:7 7 Negative judgement appraisals in italics.

Accounting for appreciation, Trump is, again, negative to Hillary’s side by evaluating ‘things’ as overly bad (negative appraisals): [SECTION 1] America (8), Democrat Administration (1); [SECTION 2] Democrat Administration/ Immigration (4), Press (2), roads, bridges, airports (2), Iran deal (2), America (1), the world (1); and [SECTION 3] other countries (6) , America (1), Middle East (1), Democrat supporters - business, media (2).

Social evaluations are also a big part of Trump’s speech. He uses this type of rhetoric device differently than Clinton, though. When defining his “social islands”, “We” and “They-Americans”, he combines judgement, appreciation and social evaluation in a way the audience loses sight of the real target of his criticism, as can be noted in the following excerpt:

"Tonight, I will share with you my plan of action for America. The most important difference between our plan and that of our opponents, is that our plan will put America First. Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo."

As detailed in Diagram 2, deixis analysis of the excerpt reveals a combination of appreciation (things), judgement (candidate) and social evaluation (parties). This bridging of evaluation is allowed by an ideological identification of the background (real) target: Clinton.

Diagram 2
Evaluation through combined appraisal types

Social evaluations are applied by Trump to consolidate ideological complexes. When blending non-humans participants with human processes, the now-President creates a tension of ideational and interpersonal meanings through the use of processes as grammatical metaphors. This persuasive strategy implies a sort of “institutional behavior” that can only be obtained from a certain “group-thinking” standpoint reflecting ideologies that his target audience is aligned with (“we” - inclusive) or reject (“they” - exclusive). See in the following excerpt (social evaluation participants in italics):

As long as we are led by politicians who will not put America first, then we can be assured that other nations will not treat America with respect the respect that we deserve. Non-human Participants: America, other nations Human Processes: lead - put - be assured - treat - deserve

Therefore, in the excerpt, social evaluations are a particularly strong subtype of Appraisal because, by bridging candidates and parties, one can potentially establish a common ground for evaluations crafted out of shared or rejected ideological sets that puts both candidates and institutions (parties, organizations, social groups, companies, etc.) on the reach of a lesser degree (at the level of lexicogrammar) type of evaluation, but connected to implied ideology scattered throughout the text. This can be observed in the following excerpt, detailed in Diagram 3.

Diagram 3
Microdiscursive and macrodiscursive unfolding

"Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place"

“Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place”

Diagram 3 presents the macro notion of ideology accessed from the micro notions of group members’ discourses and social practices (cf. LI, 2010LI, J. Transitivity and Lexical Cohesion: Press Representations of a Political Disaster and its Actors. Journal of Pragmatics , v. 42, n. 12, pp.3444-3458, 2010.). This rhetoric effect the result of a micro and macrodiscursive unfolding: pronominal variations of the outgroup do not define neither “things” nor “people”, that is, “business”, “elite”, “donors” and “she” are all encapsulated as the same “thing” that “knows” (human process) of a problematic situation: it is the accountability and the ideological identification that establishes this bridging.

7 Persuasive Strategies of Candidates

After examining the then-candidates’ discursive strategies, it is possible to garner some information about the types of strategies they deployed. In Table 4, we can see whether or not, and to which extent, social evaluation was applied by Clinton and Trump as rhetoric devices based on demoticism and variations of “politics of fear” and the “arrogance of ignorance” (cf. WODAK, 2015WODAK, R. The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2015.). Their discourses did not differ much in terms of the types of rhetorical arsenal applied to persuade voters. Both of them deployed discursive strategies aligned to what Wodak defines as “argumentation strategies used by ingroup members to delineate differences between groups and distance themselves from the outgroup” (1999, p.31). Although all listed devices were identified in both speeches, they were applied in different ways, varying from a positive-negative standpoint to a different proportion of evaluative lexicon.

Table 4
Examples of types of persuasive strategies in candidates' speeches

The big picture obtained from Charts 1 Annex B Chart 1 appraisal mapping in Clinton’s speech Source: Author and 2 Annex D Chart 2 appraisal mapping in Trump’s speech Source: Author (Annexes B Annex B Chart 1 appraisal mapping in Clinton’s speech Source: Author and D Annex D Chart 2 appraisal mapping in Trump’s speech Source: Author ) evinces, as I argue, that political speeches of this kind in electoral or polarized scenarios, when based on social evaluations, ought to be assumed from an “antithetical-background” perspective, in other words, ideological meanings are directly connected with background meanings encoded in agendas and/or personified in specific political rivalries. This antithetical-background meaning is scarcely accessed in small corpora of isolated texts (e.g. speech vs. speech), it has to be extracted from political agendas and discourses. Therefore, one’s discourse is usually identified by the target audience based on a biased identification of a “nemesis” figure that triggers a “set-of-ideas-we-go-against” stance, especially in polarized scenarios.

In this study, by pairing together RNC and DNC speeches, uses of social evaluation revealed important aspects to be considered in dichotomic political analysis like this, such as: (a) proportion of the evaluative meaning; (b) propagation of evaluation in text; (c) negative meaning (outgroup) versus positive meaning (ingroup); and (d) steadfast negativity or positivity. Also, the identification of ideological or evaluative solidarity is, therefore, a key interpersonal parameter for electors to make meaning of political speeches.

Concluding Remarks

This research studied persuasion through appraisal with a focus on social evaluation in Clinton-Trump nomination speeches. Results indicated that social evaluation proved to be a strong persuasion device because it works on the domain of the belief systems encapsulated in discourses, changing and/or preserving ideologies. In this sense, from a metadiscursive perspective, social evaluation can be particularly effective in political discourses due to its capacity of battling ideological agendas by reaching a higher-ranked target of criticism that is not as effectively accessed by judgement or appreciation appraisals separately.

The analyses revealed that the then-candidates adopted different approaches in tone, proportion and scale to stand ideological views and field evaluations in speeches. In the first part of her speech, Clinton employed fewer evaluations when compared to Trump, who managed to consistently voice them. While Trump adopted an overly negative stance, based on judgement and social evaluation, Clinton rather loaded her speech with positive evaluation, using affect and judgement substantially. Both candidates invested heavily on social evaluation as a persuasive device to single out from each other ideologically.

The We-Americans and They-Americans categories were wisely applied by both candidates. Clinton’s strategy was based on distancing herself and her electors from all the negativity she tried to associate with the Republican candidate. On the other hand, Trump evaluated Clinton constantly, mainly by using evoked appraisals to pair a negative state-of-affairs (appreciation) with people in command (judgement), while transferring accountability to Clinton due to the ideological bridging that social evaluation allows.

The Appraisal framework proved to be efficient for mapping ideological meaning in political speeches. For being loaded with social evaluation, these speeches are capable of increasing political polarization since they tend to amplify a group-thinking orientation based on distinguishing bad-or-good values that electors reject or identify with. Therefore, shareable sets of values and beliefs associated to parties, politicians, and electors make this type of audience particularly susceptible to social evaluation.

To sum up, political discourses favor certain presupposed values of attitude that are usually based on underlying cultural orientations of that specific political/ideological group. Discursive parameters applied in this very specific cultural and situational context set the rules of the game for candidates and voters beyond their encoded beliefs. In the analyzed case, the way then-candidates’ speeches influenced voters inside their “allied” and “enemy” ideological groups for the outcome of the election involves a much more complex political analysis, however, it is undeniable that speeches were a pivotal aspect of that election since it provided a cumulative groove of semantic patterning with the potential to lead voters’ interpretation and reinforce ideological views.

  • 1
    Parties conventions are ceremonies in which delegates of both parties traditionally choose their nominees for President and Vice President of the United States. In 2016, Republicans held RNC on July 18-21, 2016, at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. By its side, DNC was held at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from July 25 - 28, 2016.
  • 2
    “Similarly, positive and negative valuations of something imply positive and negative judgements of the capacity of someone to create or perform. But we consider it useful to distinguish between judgements of behavior and evaluations of things.” (MARTIN; WHITE, 2005, p.27).
  • 3
    In the “Britain sticks out as the great exception”, “great” graduates appreciation in terms of force.
  • 4
    See Martin and White (2005) to understand how Attitude appraisals can be sub-categorized.
  • 5
    red = JUDGEMENT; blue = AFFECT; green = APPRECIATION; + ve = positive; - ve = negative.
  • 6
    Clinton discussed varied themes in her speech, namely, political platform, Country’s foundation and history, unity and dissention, world dangers, Economy, Immigration, Religion, Terrorism, Education, and Family.
  • 7
    Negative judgement appraisals in italics.

Annex A

"Stronger together" motto: "We had settled on Stronger Together as our theme for the general election after a lot of thought and discussion. [...]. My team in Brooklyn had started with three basic contrasts we wanted to draw with Trump. He was risky and unqualified, but I was steady and ready to deliver results on Day One. He was a fraud who was in it only for himself, but I was in it for children and families and would make our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top. He was divisive, while I would work to bring the country together. The challenge was to find a way to marry all three together in a memorable slogan that reflected my values and record. Stronger Together did that better than anything else we could think of." (CLINTON, 2017, p.23).

Annex B

Chart 1
appraisal mapping in Clinton’s speech

Annex C

Excerpt from Clinton's DNC discourse: "Don't let anyone tell you we don't have what it takes. We do. And most of all, don't believe anyone who says: "I alone can fix it."Those were actually Donald Trump's words in Cleveland. And they should set off alarm bells for all of us. Really? I alone can fix it? Isn't he forgetting? Troops on the front lines. Police officers and fire fighters who run toward danger. Doctors and nurses who care for us. Teachers who change lives. Entrepreneurs who see possibilities in every problem. Mothers who lost children to violence and are building a movement to keep other kids safe. He's forgetting every last one of us. Americans don't say: "I alone can fix it." We say: "We'll fix it together." Remember: Our Founders fought a revolution and wrote a Constitution so America would never be a nation where one person had all the power.".

Annex D

Chart 2
appraisal mapping in Trump’s speech

Annex E

Excerpt from Trump's RNC discourse: "Let's review the record. In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map. Libya was cooperating. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was under control. After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have? ISIS has spread across the region, and the world. Libya is in ruins, and our Ambassador and his staff were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers. Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim brotherhood, forcing the military to retake control. Iraq is in chaos. Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war and a refugee crisis that now threatens the West. After fifteen years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before. This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and weakness."

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Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    21 Sept 2020
  • Date of issue
    Jul-Sep 2020

History

  • Received
    25 Oct 2019
  • Accepted
    05 June 2020
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