“We are not Going Back” vs “Make America Great Again.” The Discourse of 2024 US Presidential Campaign

Abstract

The article is devoted to the discourse picture of the 2024 presidential campaign in the USA. The research was conducted within the framework of the “discourse – cognition – society” triangle. It is based primarily on three key principles of discourse analysis: sequentiality, constructivity, and strategies. A communicative-cognitive model of discourse analysis is proposed, which focuses mainly on the narrative structure of discourse as a macro-speech event. From this perspective, the discourse of the 2024 presidential campaign in the USA is examined as a cycle of stories united by a common “storyline.” These stories are linked through several recurring sentences, among which several key ones are identified. The main strategies for shaping public opinion and the means of linguistic influence employed by Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are examined and described. The analysis centers on the speech activity of the presidential candidates and its semantic structure. Four levels of organization within the semantic structure of the presidential campaign discourse are investigated: general communicative intention, thinking stereotypes, strategies, and the tactics and methods of influencing the addressee. Common and distinctive features in the construction of narratives and strategies by the participants in the election campaign are characterized and identified. Studies of this kind offer new approaches to the application of discourse analysis in political linguistics and may be useful in exploring the mechanisms of public opinion formation and influence on audiences.