Means of explicating the strategy of manipulating information in american electoral discourse
- DOI
- 10.5922/vestnikpsy-2025-1-3
- Pages
- 31—40
Abstract
The article examines the use of linguistic manipulation techniques by Joe Biden and Donald Trump during the political debates of the 2020 U.S. presidential election campaign. The strategy of manipulative influence on the mass audience through presenting information in a manner advantageous to the speaker is understood as one of the key strategies of agonistic discourse, which implies a competitive nature of communication. Five linguistic tactics used to implement this strategy are identified and analyzed, namely evasion of an answer, question substitution, speculation, generalization, and clarification. The persuasive potential of relevant linguistic units functioning as explicit markers of the identified speech tactics is interpreted. The universal nature of the strategy of information manipulation within the context of presidential campaign discourse is noted.