A Critical Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump's Sexist Ideology

Abstract

Language is not always seen as a neutral vehicle which represents reality. It is sometimes described as a tool which is drawn on to discriminate, insult, abuse, and belittle others. This is evident in the case of sexism which is seen as language that discriminates against women by representing them negatively or which seems to implicitly assume that activities primarily associated with women are necessarily trivial. Thus, language is described as a potential that is drawn on strategically by sexists to devalue or marginalize women. The current paper is a critical discourse analysis of Donald Trump's negative evaluation of women. It sheds light on his sexist ideology to negatively represent and underestimate women. It aims to investigate the structural, lexical, and rhetorical strategies that are utilized for this purpose. For this end, the researcher will analyze some of Trump's opinions concerning women in different occasions drawing upon an eclectic model adopted from Mill's (2008) and VanDijk ((2006).

Keywords: sexism, critical discourse analysis, Trump, ideology, negative evaluation.