A Lexical Pragmatic Study of Democrats' Election Campaign Slogans

Abstract

The problem addressed in this study is simply represented by the sort of uncertainty that may exist over the type of Lexical Pragmatic (LP) processes employed by the designers of election slogans and the strategies they employ to influence their addressees and get them involved into these slogans. The study is intended to investigate the slogans employed in Democrats' posters and political speeches in the American presidential election campaigns. To achieve the aims of the study, two types of procedures have been adopted: theoretical and practical. The theoretical procedures consist of presenting a theoretical framework of LP including its definitions, historical background, and some related studies. On the other hand, the practical procedures consist of selecting four slogans from U.S. News & World Report, Washington Times and NPR. The results of the selected slogans have shown that Democrats depend heavily on narrowing and broadening processes in the slogans they use in political speeches and posters. The results have also shown some differences between the two groups of slogans in terms of the employed LP processes.