A Comparative Study of Politeness Strategies: An Analysis of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris Speeches in the Presidential Election Campaign

Abstract

This study explores politeness strategies in the campaign speeches of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris during the 2024 U.S. presidential election. According to Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory (1987), linguistic strategies of face management, political identity construction, and audience engagement were examined. A total of seven speeches per candidate have been analyzed qualitatively in NVivo 12 based on four main strategies—Positive Politeness, Negative Politeness, Bald On Record, and Off-Record. Both candidates use positive politeness as the main strategy, but for different purposes. If, as in Trump's case, positive politeness is mixed with some on-record directness, Trump mostly uses it to establish his authority and rev up his primary group. Harris, by contrast, uses all four strategies to convey cooperation and inclusiveness in institutional decorum through hedging, irony, and metaphor. The research has established that politeness strategies are highly strategic tools for managing face while creating political identities that influence voters in contemporary political discourse.

Keywords: Politeness Strategies; Political Discourse; Election Campaign Speeches; Brown and Levinson; Donald Trump; Kamala Harris