On The Persuasive Function Of Trump’s Speeches On Immigration From The Perspective Of Framing Theory

Presidential speech is a kind of speech in which Presidents express their political stances and expound their policies on various domestic and foreign affairs.The most important function of Presidential speech is to achieve persuasion,which is concerned with how the audience’s attitudes or behaviors are,without duress,influenced by Presidents’speeches.And Lakoff’s framing theory explores how the audience’s ideas are changed unconsciously at the synaptic level.Previous studies on the persuasive function of Presidential speeches are mainly from the perspectives of rhetoric,pragmatics,meta-discourse,cross-culture and systemic-functional grammar,while the relevant cognitive research is mainly restricted to the perspective of conceptual metaphor,few from the perspective of framing.The speeches of Donald John Trump,the 45^thPresident of the United States,especially his speeches on immigration,have stirred enormous interest in various research fields.Based on this,this thesis carries out a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analysis on the persuasive function of Trump’s speeches on immigration from the perspective of framing theory.Taking framing theory as the theoretical framework,this study selects 32 pieces of Trump’s speeches on immigration as the texts,and analyzes the number and frequency of major frames with the help of BFSU Qualitative Coder and Ant Conc3.2.4w,so as to explore the realization process of persuasive function.This study answers three research questions:（1）What major frames are used in Trump’s speeches on immigration?（2）How do the frames help achieve the persuasive function of Trump’s speeches on immigration?（3）What are the hidden reasons that Trump chooses to employ these frames to persuade the audience in his speeches on immigration?The research shows that:（1）Trump frames immigrants without paper as evil threats to America through Criminal Frame（27.7%）,Flood Frame（12.6%）and Invasion Frame（11.3%）.Through Animal Frame（10.1%）,immigrants without paper are framed as lower-level animals.Through Victim Frame（16.1%）,public Americans are framed as innocent victims.Through Container Frame（6.3%）,America is framed as a container that can be filled up at any time,and American immigration system as a broken container.Through Repairing Frame（4.5%）and Defending Frame（11.4%）,Republicans are framed as national heroes who protect the country and the people.（2）Through repeated exposure to Trump’s repetition of the above frames,the synapses that connect the frames and the corresponding framed entities are repeatedly activated and strengthened until they become fixed in the audience’s brain.These fixed synapses can not only convince the audience of Trump’s framed facts,but also stimulate the audience to automatically and unconsciously use the frames when talking about related issues.In addition,somatic markers correlate the corresponding meaning neural circuitry and emotional neural circuitry of the above frames.Thus via mental simulation circuitry and mirror neuron circuitry,the audience’s hostility and anger towards immigrants without paper,sympathy and understanding for themselves,and appreciation and support for Trump administration can be aroused and stimulated.And in turn,these emotions can also strengthen the synapses that connect the above frames and the corresponding framed entities,so that the audience are more easily and deeply convinced by Trump’s framed facts.（3）Trump’s employment of Criminal Frame,Animal Frame,Flood Frame,Invasion Frame,Victim Frame,Repairing Frame,and Defending Frame is due to his worldview of“Strict Father Family Model”,and the rationale behind his use of Container Frame is his conventional metaphorical thought.This study is not only of great social value to help the public improve their ability in writing and evaluating speech,but also enhance their critical awareness of language and persuasive ability in their daily life.In addition,the study further verifies the explanatory power of framing theory in analyzing persuasive function,and provides a new cognitive perspective for the study of American presidential speeches,which has some implications for the analysis of other political discourse in the future.