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In:Practising Stylistics: Essays in Honour of Paul Simpson
Edited by Clara Neary, Simon Statham and Peter Stockwell
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 45] 2026
► pp. 148–164

Chapter 12
The Trump–Harris 2024 presidential debate

Polarised regimes of language, emotions and truth

 | University of Montpellier - Paul Valéry / IUF
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Drawing on the work of Simpson et al. (2018) on analysing political language, in this chapter Sandrine Sorlin demonstrates the force and usefulness of stylistic tools and theories in examining political discourse and enhances the stylistic approach through insights drawn from (evolutionary) psychology and sociology. Applying a range of stylistic methods to the Trump–Harris 2024 US presidential debate, including analysis of lexico-syntactic choices, cognitive metaphors and personal deixis, Sorlin presents a comprehensive elucidation on how both candidates construct representations of themselves, of their respective roles in the world and of their perceptions of their fellow Americans. In so doing, she illustrates how the rhetoric of each candidate fundamentally differs in appealing to voters, from how they construct themselves to how they conceptualise their credentials and their actions.
Article outline
  • Stylistics of political discourse
  • Lexis and deixis
  • Person deixis and positioning
  • Reaching out to voters
    • Seeking gut reactions versus showing empathy
    • Negative versus positive emotions and storytelling
  • (Post-)truth and key words
    • Regimes of truth
    • A rhetoric of keywords
  • Conclusion
  • References
References (30)
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