Presidential Language in the Pressroom: A Corpus-Assisted Analysis of Trump's Spontaneous Discourse

Donald Trump has been the most controversial figure in the recent US political scene. Besides being well-known for his political views and his conduct as President, he has also grabbed people’s attention with his original use of language, which is unlike that of many politicians and former Presidents. But what makes it different? What role is language playing in his unexpected political success? Starting from such questions, and with the fundamental help of two collections of transcripts (corpora), this study analyses a representative sample of Trump’s press conferences to shed light on his spontaneous discourse, that is, the language he employs when he speaks off the cuff, without following any script.