Love it or loathe it, Donald Trump is back again as the 47th President of the United States of America. Language is power, and honestly, he’s proven that again.
What we can learn from Trumpspeak
There’s plenty to unpack from Trump’s speeches, but if we strip away the content and focus in on the techniques, we can learn a lot from what has been dubbed ‘Trumpspeak’ and how language can be used to persuade.
Here are five language devices favoured by Donald Trump to win voters:
- Repetition
Every salesman’s best friend, the use of repetition is employed by Trump to ensure his potential voters go home from his rallies with his message singing loudly in their ears. Trump is fond of the tag question ‘you know’ – encouraging his listeners to agree with his point. Close your eyes now and I bet you can hear the words ‘fake news’, ‘tremendous’ and ‘great’ echoing unsettlingly in your mind.
Top Takeaway Tip: in each piece of writing, refer back to your key message, using it to anchor your text.
- Simple language
In spite of his great wealth and position, Trump connects with his target audience as a ‘man of the people’ through his use of accessible, every day, plain language. In doing so he makes politics feel accessible to the masses, and this simplicity of speech helps him to connect with a broader audience than if he were to use more complex word choices. Of course, this does run the risk of oversimplifying more complex political issues.
Top Takeaway Tip: know your target audience. Compile a pen portrait of who they might be, likes and dislikes, right down to which supermarket they might choose to shop in and what make and model of car they might drive, and write in a register that resonates with them.
- Hyperbole
More simply known as exaggeration, Trump and hyperbole go together like fish and chips (or peanut butter and jelly for the locals). Again, he uses simple language for his hyperbole, filled with superlatives to great effect, describing people and issues in absolutist terms such as ‘total disaster’, ‘forever’, ‘extremely’, ‘tremendous’, ‘enormously’ and ‘complete’. Just check out his victory speech today for an example:
“This is a movement like nobody’s ever seen before and, frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country… and now it’s going to reach a new level of importance…”
Combined with his penchant for repetition, taste for intensifiers (count how many times he uses the word ‘very’ in his speeches) this language magnifies his views and ideas, commanding attention (even if their veracity remains to be proven).
Top Takeaway Tip: used to the right degree, a little hyperbole can take your business to the moon!
- Emotive appeal
There’s no better way to rouse a crowd than to appeal to their emotions, and Trump employs the trick of emotive language often. Speaking in the language of the heart, rather than to voters’ heads, talking of ‘the golden age of America’ in his most recent victory speech, and when addressing the ‘forgotten men and women’ of America and ‘silent majority’ in his 2016 rallies.
Tapping into the feelings of frustrations among certain segments of the population and by promising not to ‘forget’ these Americans, he aimed to stir feelings of recognition, validation, and hope among his target audience.
Top Takeaway Tip: identify the ‘pain point’ or key issues your customer is facing and choose language that will evoke a strong emotional response in your reader. Empathise, address them, acknowledge their plight and show them the solution.
- Slogans
Donald Trump is a businessman, and he understands better than most that catchy slogans sell…products and ideas. Make America Great Again. Build the Wall. Never Surrender. Too Big to Rig. Short, memorable, condensing a whole campaign into a handful of words.
Conversational, if not always credible, his ability to ad lib on stage and speak in the language of the people has once again got Donald Trump across the finish line.
Perhaps one thing this election result can also do is to remind us of the power each word we utter holds. Choose your words carefully, and you can build an empire.
Top Takeaway Tip:
Memorable slogans are the ones that are succinct, easy to understand and match simplicity with rhythm and pack an emotional punch.
If you’d like to know more about how to captivate your audience to a presidential degree through command of the English language, feel free to drop me a line at hello@wordsbywoodslea.com and let’s make your copy great again!
