A Pragmatic Study of Threatening Strategies in Trump’s Speech on January 6, 2021

Abstract

This study addresses a significant gap in political discourse analysis by conducting a fine-grained pragmatic examination of the speech act of threatening, focusing specifically on the under-researched strategies of implicit coercion and plausible deniability. The primary research objective is to elucidate how threatening illocutionary acts are constructed, communicated, and legitimized within a populist framework. To this end, the study poses the following research questions: How are explicit and implicit threats linguistically encoded? What pragmatic and rhetorical strategies facilitate threat mitigation or amplification? And how do these strategies function to shape political action and in-group identity?

The research design employs a qualitative pragmatic analysis grounded in an integrated theoretical framework of Speech Act Theory (Searle, 1969), Politeness Theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987), and Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995). This tripartite model enables a layered investigation of the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary dimensions of threat production. The dataset consists of ten strategically selected excerpts from Donald Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, chosen for their pragmatic salience and relevance to the subsequent Capitol riot.

The findings reveal that Trump’s rhetoric relies predominantly on implicit threat strategies—such as off-record intimations and presuppositional assertions—to maintain plausible deniability while mobilizing followers. Key strategies identified include the blending of commissive pledges (vows of resistance) with directive commands (calls to action), often amplified through hyperbole, metaphor, and dichotomous framing ("us vs. them"). Crucially, the analysis demonstrates how positive politeness strategies (e.g., inclusive "we") foster in-group solidarity, while bald-on-record face-threatening acts delegitimize opponents. A central finding is the pervasive use of victim-perpetrator reversal, which morally reframes aggression as righteous self-defense.

The study concludes that the pragmatics of threatening in Trump’s discourse is not merely instrumental but constitutive, shaping a political reality where democratic norms are subverted and extra-legal action is legitimized. This research underscores the critical role of pragmatic analysis in decoding the latent power of political language and its capacity to weaponize grievance.