Authority-Based Strategy of (De)legitimization in American Electoral Discourse: A Case Study

The paper presents an analysis of (de)legitimization in American pre-election discourse based on the tactics of appealing to “authorities”, any entity, person or value which continue to retain confidence, have credibility or are otherwise entitled to authority in the society and family. Sixty 2020 election campaign speeches of U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden and U.S. vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris were the material of this case study. Our research approach is based on theoretical and methodological findings of linguopersonology and political linguistics. The main methods used are those of intent, semantic and stylistic analysis. The purpose was to identify, describe and categorize the authorities cited by the two politicians during their campaign and to correlate them to voters’ aspirations in the cities and states involved. The analysis of relevant contexts revealed that the choice of authorities is primarily guided by the expectations of target groups of voters to whom the campaign speech is addressed. For this reason, the pre-election discourse of the politicians under study includes the authorities which are important for different target groups of voters addressed all over the country. The study of the American pre-election discourse yields a general classification of authorities to which both politicians are appealing; it includes famous politicians, public figures, renowned experts, scientists, outstanding representatives of the culture and art. The politicians may also appeal to the authority of the speaker himself, their parents (mom, dad); edifying example of ordinary people (not celebrities); authority of high positions; authority of institutions and bodies; authority of universal values; authority of different kinds of texts (reports, laws, Scriptures), and sometimes authority of some mass media sources. The multiplicity of the authorities represented in our classification is explained in the paper as a logical consequence of addresser-addressee interaction. It also reeals the important role of the politician’s personality to appeal at a rally to “authorities” that might in his opinion be attractive for his specific audience. The paper presents the results of the analysis of the linguistic features of the appeal-to-authority tactics.