Gender discourses in the 2016 US presidential election campaign

Abstract

Poststructuralist schools of thought hold that discursive practices influence social practices and vice versa. Dominant discourses in society determine the ways in which major issues and topics are discussed and they (re)produce social order. Discourses produce identities, social relations and systems of knowledge and meaning. This makes discourse analysis an effective tool to understanding social and political reality. In this thesis, the analysis focuses on the gendered discourses in the 2016 US presidential election. This thesis tests a combined model for analysing political and social processes by combining Norman Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis (CDA) with insights from Michel Foucault and from the field of developmental and social psychology. This thesis aims to find a balance between linguistics and social praxis.