Donald Trump Evaluative Language Essay

In order to examine both the POTUS account and Donald Trump’s account’s use of evaluative language to communicate with their imagined audience, it is important to define the term imagined audience and examine the imagined audience of each of the accounts. The imagined audience can be defined as “the conceptualisation of the people with whom we are communicating, our audience (Litt, 2012:331).” In Donald Trump’s case, it is clear that his tweets are targeted at Americans, his followers and supporters. This is demonstrated in tweets 17-20, which use terms like ‘America first,’ ‘American spirit,’ ‘American people’ and “make America great again.” These tweets not only display the use of positive appreciation because he is explicitly stating his appreciation for America, but also
This is demonstrated in tweets 2, 11 and 13, which display Trump’s use of negative judgment in relation to North Korea, China and Mexico, as he is making a negative judgment on the behaviour and morals of these countries. These tweets further demonstrate how Trump has used evaluative language to communicate a negative image of these countries by depicting them as problematic; therefore, encouraging his imagined audience to support him by turning on these countries. Consequently, these tweets highlight how Trump has not considered his wider international audience as a part of his imagined audience; therefore, only potentially appealing to Americans who he considers his imagined audience, but causing offense towards his followers that are of Mexican, Chinese and North Korean heritage. These examples have illustrated how Trump’s imagined audience consists of Americans; however, differs from his actual audience, which is largely consisted of a wider international