American Political Figures: Idiolect

Abstract

   The article “American political figures: idiolect” is aimed at classifying and analyzing idiolects of former American presidents using speech patterns of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump as an example. The peculiarities of their speech patterns which include gradation, repeat and concretization as stylistic techniques as well as the usage of descriptive attributes and emphatic amplifiers are presumably based on the level of their education, social and party belonging. In this article we are going to use both possible ways of interpretation of the notion idiolect (its narrow and wide meaning) and we are going to analyze speech peculiarities of former American presidents treating them as language personalities. Despite some similarities of the stylistic techniques used by the former presidents-members of the US Democratic Party we can also trace some obvious differences characteristic for Donald Trump’s speech who is the representative of the US Republican Party. There is no room for doubt that the ex-president is an outstanding, extraordinary political figure that does not correspond to classic perception of a politician either in his speech or in his behavior. The usage of slang elements in his speech that are more typical for young people makes his public statements more emotional and different from other politicians. Nevertheless, he does not ignore standard for the Democratic Party members’ techniques such as gradation, for instance, to make his public appearance unforgettable and to produce a strong impression on the audience.