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Hate Speech in Political Discourse

An Analysis of Former US President Trump’s Rhetoric

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Abstract

The speeches delivered by Former U.S. President Donald Trump during his last presidential campaign (2015–2016) included hateful remarks against Muslims and immigrants. This study explored strategies of hate speech used in Trump’s political discourse against out-groups. The data consisted of a corpus of Trump’s speeches and interviews. Our analysis was based on Whillock’s [48] criteria of hate speech and Erjavec and Kovačič’s [13] strategies of hate speech. The results revealed that Trump employed re-articulation of meaning and renaming by attributing any problem to immigrants and Muslims to express hatred against them, using direct hatred words. His overt use of hate speech strategies stemmed from his legitimate power and social authority as a successful businessman in his field.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English Language and Literature, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan

    Ghaleb Rabab’ah & Asmaa Hussein

  2. Department of Foreign Languages, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

    Ghaleb Rabab’ah & Samer Jarbou

Authors
  1. Ghaleb Rabab’ah
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  2. Asmaa Hussein
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  3. Samer Jarbou
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Correspondence to Ghaleb Rabab’ah.

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Rabab’ah, G., Hussein, A. & Jarbou, S. Hate Speech in Political Discourse. Int J Semiot Law (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-024-10158-8

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