Author(s)

Zimo Yang ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Dalian University of Foreign Languages, Lvshun South Road, Dalian, China

Corresponding Author

Zimo Yang

ABSTRACT

Presupposition theory from a pragmatic perspective emphasizes the dependence of presupposition on context, linking presupposition to the speaker and hearer while focusing on its dynamic nature. Political speeches, as a distinctive pragmatic act, inherently possess unique and irreplaceable contextual characteristics, which is particularly true for presidential inaugural addresses. This study selects the inaugural speeches of two U.S. presidents, Donald Trump (2025) and Barack Obama (2013), as corpora. Through corpus-based analysis using AntConc software, it observes that pragmatic presuppositions of the speakers (presidents) exhibit varying degrees of differentiation due to contextual factors such as their political affiliations and the international/domestic circumstances during their inaugurations. These differences are most notably reflected in their strategic choices of personal deixis.

KEYWORDS

Pragmatic Presupposition Theory, Personal Deixis, Inaugural Addresses

CITE THIS PAPER

Zimo Yang, Personal Deixis from Pragmatic Presupposition Theory: Comparative Study of Trump's and Obama's Inaugural Addresses. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2025) Vol. 8: 46-51. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2025.080308.

REFERENCES

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