English Personal Pronouns as a Manipulation Strategy in Political Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Manipulation is a discursive concept which plays a key role in political discourse by which politicians can impose some impact on their recipients through using linguistic features, most prominent of which are personal pronouns (Van Dijk, 1995). The aim of this study is to investigate how politicians utilize the personal pronouns, namely; We and I and their possessive forms as a tool of manipulating the audience's mind based on Van Dijk's "ideological square" which shows positive-self representation and negative-other representation (Van Dijk,1998:p.69). To this end, American President Donald Trump's 2020 State of the Union speech was chosen to be the data of analysis. Only (8) examples out of (226) extracts of his speech involving the use the personal pronouns along with their indications were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Results reveal that Trump uses these pronouns to exercise an ideological influence on his audience, basically to present himself positively. The study concludes that Trump strategically uses personal pronouns as a functional indication of collectivity, nationalism, and direct/shared responsibility. Findings might help linguists and political analysts to understand how politicians have the ability to exploit the linguistic characteristics in their language to fulfill their ends manipulatively.

personal pronouns should not only viewed as an expression of person, number and gender according to traditional grammar. Rather, they are judged and discussed in terms of the "identity work" they actually do in political discourse because these personal pronouns are deeply involved in constructing the "self" and the "other" (Bramley, 2001, p. V). Pronominal choices play a key role in presenting politician's real personality, either as an independent figure or a group-related individual. In other words, politicians use pronouns to reflect their varied identities, enhance the concepts of collectivity, solidarity or nationalism, or to establish the dichotomy of presenting themselves positively and others negatively, in addition to being able to strategically construct and change the roles of political actors (Wilson, 1990, p.76;Bramley,2001, p. 262). Thus, one can say that no study of political discourse would be considered good enough without taking the role of personal pronouns into account because such pronominal choices reflect a strategy of polarization which can be utilized for the ends pre-determined in this type of discourse.

Previous Studies
Manipulation has widely been conducted by scholars and analysts such as Nordlund(2003), Pronomarenko(2013) , Kamil & Al-Hindawi (2017), and others. In her valuable study, Nordlund (2003) investigated how different newspapers displayed the same news from divergent political positions in order to create the intended influence on the reader's mind, adding that the process followed two major types of manipulation: one was at the level of syntax with some strategic moves like "transitivity, active/passive voice, modality, nominalization, permutation, initialization, innuendo and utterance context"; the other was referred to as lexico-semantic manipulation in which the words were selected on the basis of emotional or cultural connotation.

Journal of the College of Languages
No. (44) 2021 Pronomarenko(2013) also explored manipulation in the language of journalism. He analyzed the journalistic texts of some newspapers observing that these newspapers reflected their political points of view which were aimed at influencing the readers' understanding and the society's mass consciousness as a whole. Tackling manipulation from a pragmatic point of view, Kamil & Al-Hindawi (2017) carried out a contrastive study on British and American political debates held by Clegg, Brown and Cameron as British PM nominees on the one hand, and Ryan-Biden & Bush-Kerry as American Presidential candidates on the other hand. They observed that their manipulative language consisted of three main stages which were "inauguration, argumentation and conclusion". Besides, the speakers' manipulative discourse had four noticed criteria of communication namely; "distortion, fabrication, equivocation and concealment", and was actualized by pragmatic devices such as (im) politeness, speech acts, personal pronouns, violation of conversational maxims, maneuvering and finally pragmatic strategies related to Relevance Theory. Among types of manipulation they observed are "volitional, deceptive, rational, submissive, social, and emotional" (Kamil & Al-Hindawi, 2017, pp.315-320).
However, to the best of the researchers' knowledge, no study has been so far conducted to explore and analyze the manipulation strategy of using personal pronouns in English presidential political speeches of Donald Trump at discourse perspective. Thus, this study would hopefully fill the gap in CDA literature by exploring how Trump ideologically manipulates the recipients' thoughts via using personal pronouns for presenting himself positively.  Van Dijk's (1998) ideological square is adopted in this study as the main analytical framework to analyze the data qualitatively and quantitatively. He characterizes it as a polarization of Us and Them through which the positive and negative features of in-group (Us) and out-group (Them) are (de)emphasized by applying (8) discourse structures. The polarization between Us and Them is reflected through using these personal pronouns in his speech adopting the following strategy: Positive-Self Representation; representing the in-groups' members (Us) positively, via discourse, by deemphasizing their negative and emphasizing their positive features (Van Dijk,1998).
Since the study seeks to analyze personal pronouns from a discourse analysis standpoint, it is highly recommended first of all to be acquainted with the contextual information and circumstances which surround Trump's speech.

No. (44) 2021
Therefore, who is the speaker?, what the general issues does the speech imply?, what is the occasion of the speech?, etc. are some questions the analyst should consider first. The next step is to deal with personal pronouns, and find out how the speaker uses them to arouse some referential indications, which help him affect the American people's thoughts and emotions for his ideopolitical aims outlined in his speech.

A Contextual Overview
On the 4 th of February,2020, President Trump delivered his third State of the Union speech in which he addressed the American nation realizing the primary importance of this speech because just one year of his presidency term was left before the coming electoral race, as well as the legal problems and internal challenges he had to face. The speech was delivered before the day of impeachment trial because he was accused of power abuse and constructing the Congress intentionally. That is why the speech was considered to be defensive against the rival policies followed by some Democrats in Congress, and mainly presenting his policies, plans and achievements during the previous three years of presidency proudly and positively, while presenting others' deeds negatively and gloomily. To gain the American people's feelings and emotions and affect their minds for his ends, Trump talked about many issues that matter to the Americans starting up with the national economy which has highly flourished under his political leadership as a powerful president and his economic know-how as an adroit businessman. Besides, his tough policy against China's active and developing economy in the USA, illegal immigration and national security have not been excluded from the speech. Also, his speech includes education, health care, religious freedom in the USA, military forces, social insurance, pensioners,

Journal of the College of Languages
No. (44) 2021 8 terrorism, the peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, ending the war in Afghanistan, etc,. Thus, one can say that he utilizes this annual occasion for his benefits perfectly. To be unlike the previous presidents, specifically of the Democrats, he employs the occasion of the speech to be viewed positively as man of actions, who could achieve many big and multiple breakthroughs in just three years since he was elected in 2017. Reading between the lines of the speech could show clearly that Trump aims at making the American citizens having more sense that the previous administrations, particularly the Obama's administration, were associated only with failures and inactivity that destroyed the American economy, trade, etc., and devalued the country internationally. Hence, this speech can be considered a good example of how the speaker presents himself positively and others negatively for predetermined ideopolitical ends.

Using 'We' to indicate the speaker's direct responsibility
Example (1): "Three years ago, we launched the great American comeback." (Ext. 1) From the beginning of the speech, one can see visibly how President Trump seizes this annual occasion to affect the recipients' mind and reshape their understanding for his benefits through using the personal pronouns manipulatively in a way which might go beyond the traditional standards of person, number and gender. In this example, the speaker shows his ability to turn the group-centered meaning and socially-collective sense of We, as a first-person plural personal pronoun, into an indication where the speaker, term. The other important indication of his good image is also presupposed via depending on the iterative sense of 'American comeback' as if he wants to say that all the economic, health, education, military, etc., accomplishments have been achieved and come back to the Americans by his efforts after they were used, taken advantage of or even lost under the previous administrations. Therefore, President Trump intends strategically to enhance the sense of self at the expense of others.

Using 'We' to indicate the American people and the sense of collectivity and nationalism
Example (2): "In America, we don't punish prayer. We don't tear down crosses. We don't ban symbols of faith. We don't muzzle preachers and pastors. In America, we celebrate faith, we cherish religion, we lift our voices in prayer, and we raise our sights to the Glory of God."(Ext.97) As stated in example (1) above where President Trump uses We as an indication of his direct responsibility for the exceptional prosperous duration of his presidency term, in this example he utilizes the personal pronoun We to reflect his social collective identity by which he talks on the behalf of the American people. Politicians realize the powerful impact of using pronouns on the audience. Accordingly, he uses We to establish the sense of collectivity and nationalism via sending the message of supporting each other, as well as standing side by side with all Americans of whatever religious background they are. His aim is to beautify his image through associating it with paramount concepts of religious freedom and mosaic practices that America provides for the citizens. Therefore, he has been able to give a good picture as a president who appreciates all people of any religion, race, or colour. "In reaffirming our heritage as a free nation we must remember that America has always been a frontier nation." (Ext.99) Here, President Trump also uses strategically the possessive form Our to indicate the American people and reflect his collective, national identity. He intends to mention the American history in this occasion in a way to agitate the national affiliation and feelings in the minds of his recipients reminding them of success and development achieved in the past at the hands of the ancestors that must continue shinning now and in future. On the other hand, there is a hidden implication urged via this pronoun, which is that President Trump wants to imply that the future will be more powerful and more prosperous as long as the current policy under his leadership follows the right

Using 'Our' to indicate the speaker's direct responsibility
Example (5): "Our agenda is relentlessly pro-worker, pro-family, pro-growth, and, most of all ,pro-American"(Ext.6) In this example, President Trump uses Our to indicate himself as being responsible for everything good to his subjects. The possessive construction refers to his plans and projects which are dedicated to supporting the American families and working class, i.e., ending poverty. As a veteran businessman, he realizes the importance of the topic of economy to the American people. That is why President Trump desires to be viewed as a saviour of the low/middle-income class, who will bring justice, prosperity and satisfaction to them. And what reinforces this indication of his direct responsibility is that he employs the prefix 'pro-' which means 'to support', and repeated it four times to create some rhetorical influence on the audience, which is hopefully to be workable to fix his heroic image firmly.

Using 'Our' to indicate the speaker's shared responsibility
Example (6)

CONCLUSION
In the view of the analysis of using personal pronouns as a manipulation strategy in President Trump's political speech, the study has come up with the following conclusions: (a) the speaker uses the pronouns We, I, Our and My as key strategies to manipulate the audience's mind and to support his political position.
(b) the constructed ideological stance is the basis to employ the personal pronouns to be a source to some important indications the speaker seeks to fulfill in his speech. That is to say, manipulation has been actualized when President Trump could make himself a centre of interest via generating indications, albeit to varying degrees, to his personality, responsibility, and collective identity.
The findings of the current study might help linguists and political analysts as well as college students to consider how politicians have the ability to exploit the linguistic characteristics for their agenda. Hence, it is recommended to conduct further research on the role of manipulative language in political discourse from other perspectives, and highlight the key linguistic features which can be used as manipulation strategies.

Journal of the College of Languages
No. (44) 2021