Linguoconceptual organization of State of the Union Addresses: a constructional approach

The paper aims at identifying morphosyntactic constructions as conventionalized pairings of form, meaning and function that verbalize the basic concepts of two State of the Union addresses: Barack Obama’s in 2016 and Donald Trump’s in 2017. While the identical basic concept in the two analysed speeches is UNITY, the similar concepts are CHANGE in the perspective of providing opportunities for the Americans and other countries in Obama’s address and RENEWAL as transformation for the better in Trump’s oration. In addition, President Trump actualizes the concept THREAT as manifestation of danger, blockage to economic growth or deterioration in various aspects of American life. Obama’s address further represents the basic concept FUTURE, coded as an object of attention to the coming changes of the society, and the concept CHOICE, designated as a necessity to choose some alternative. The comparison of the identical concept UNITY reveals that both presidents verbalise it as national integrity and joint actions of Americans. However, in Obama’s address, the concept UNITY is also represented as the establishment of joint organizations, while in Trump’s oration, it is realised as shared values of the citizens. The concept CHANGE in Obama’s speech and the concept RENEWAL in Trump’s address are coded as the creation of various job opportunities because they are relevant to the target audience, security guarantees for Americans and development possibilities for other countries. Furthermore, President Obama verbalizes leadership via the concept CHANGE as a return to previous diplomatic relations with the neighbouring countries and the transformation of the US political system. In contrast, Donald Trump portrays leadership as the establishment of new alliances with international partners.