AN ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS IN DONALD TRUMP’S INAUGURAL SPEECH

The aims of this study is to discuss the types and function of personal pronouns, and how the use of personal pronouns result in certain effect intended by the speaker in Donald Trump’s inaugural speech. The writer uses theories proposed by Collins (1990) and Bramley (2001) to analyse the data. The data of this study were from Donald Trump’s Inaugural Speech on January, 20th 2017.
The data were classified into two types of personal pronouns: 32 data were subjective personal pronouns and 11 data were included to objective personal pronouns. Furthermore, the data were further classified based on the personal pronouns and their variants of personal pronouns to answer the second and third research questions.
The result showed that Donald Trump used the personal pronoun I in this speech to show some principle, morality and power. He used the personal pronoun you in order to make the audience decide if the view of the audience is as part of that group or not. They is used to separate self from others, whom the speaker refers to while using they varied greatly between him and the audience.The personal pronoun we is used to manipulate political effects and establishes a sense of group community.