Abstract
Age Factors and Coherence in Donald Trump’s Spontaneous Speech Patricia Ronan Gerold Schneider Donald Trump was seventy years old when he assumed office on January 20, 2017. Considering the style of his language, we can observe that Trump uses simple, populist language in order to reach his audience. Occasionally, however, his speech is characterized by a striking incoherence — to such a degree that it has come to be repeatedly parodied (Sclafani 2018: 71–2) . Some journalists wonder “Trump wasn’t always so linguistically challenged. What could explain the change? ” (Begley 2017) . Referring to a statement that Trump had given at a press conference, Begley comments: When President Trump offered that response to a question at a press conference last week, it was the latest example of his tortured syntax, mid-thought changes of subject, and apparent trouble formulating complete sentences, let alone a coherent paragraph, in unscripted speech. (Begley 2017)...
Ronan, Patricia