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Make America Great Again Analysis

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Make America Great Again is a campaign slogan used in American presidential campaigns by Republican candidates. It was firstly introduces by Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States. During Reagan’s presidential campaign, the state faced worsening economy at home market and the changes were urgently needed. Thus, President Reagan used this slogan to promote patriotism in the period of economical and political instability.
Donald Trump used this phrase for the first time in December 2011, when he gave the statement claiming he does not want to run for the president in the future, explaining “I must leave all of my options open because, above all else, we must make America great again" At that time, it was not used as the slogan. …show more content…

The speech act analysis can help us to reveal the true nature of this slogan. On first sight, it seems to be a direct speech act inviting people to “make America great again” by voting for him. It can be classified as directive (i.e. Trump wants to get the people do something - commanding). Speaking about its structure, the slogan has the imperative form. The basic use of the imperative is to give orders, to get someone do something. It can also be used to issue a request or to give a warning or advice. Usually, an imperative sounds impolite or abrupt, but the slogan Make America Great Again does not. The reason for this lies in the fact that it provokes a sense of obligation – it triggers the feeling of patriotism and responsibility to vote for him to make America great again. It invites people to vote for him because it is the people’s obligation. Thus, this directive seems to imply a sense of obligation - it is not a mere …show more content…

It has the imperative form and it is used to make a command while evoking patriotism. At first, it seems to be a straightforward direct speech act, but it has numerous implicatures hidden behind this simple imperative sentence. The question is: How is this implicature reached? The answer to this question is not the incongruity between the form and the function of the utterance (because there is a direct relationship – imperative/command). The answer probably lies in the presence of “again”. In this example, again is used to make an assertion about a new eventuality (>the possibility to make it great again). Again triggers an anaphoric presupposition and it requires that the salient eventuality be past to the reference time. It means that this slogan refers to the time when America was great (i.e. probably when the Republicans were running the government). Thus, the implicature is created through the usage of again which evokes the additional meaning of the whole

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