A Pragmatic Study of Indexicality in Donald Trump's Farewell Address

Abstract

This  study is descriptive qualitative study; it aims to illustrate how deictic expressions are used in Donald Trump’s farewell address from a pragmatic perspective. To meet this objective, Levinson (1983) and Yule’s  (1996) five major types of deixis: person, time, place, social, and discourse deixis, will be adopted in data analysis. The analysis has demonstrated that person, time, place, social, and discourse deixis play a role in constructing meaning and in shaping the political ideologies. The textual analysis has further shown that each type of deixis is used by Trump to attain certain purposes. For instance, person deixis was used to get along with his followers and to distinguish his adversaries. Temporal deixis was used to focus on accomplishments and perseverance. For touching national imagery he used spatial deixis, whereas social deixis was employed to emphasize social relationships. The last type, discourse deixis, was used to build a coherent narrative. This study, by focusing on deictic expressions, has demonstrated their vital contribution in conveying ideological messages and in enhancing the communicative power of political speeches on the audience.