I collected from the White House website (https://www.whitehouse.gov/), the transcripts of the speeches of Donald Trump during the last seven days (Feb. 21 – 27). Ten speeches were available; I looked at them using WordSmith Tools. The ten texts contained a total of a little more than 19,000 words. Firstly, I wanted to have a look at frequency.
As is often the case, the most frequent words are grammatical words, however, we and I may prove insightful.
If I order the collocates one lace to the right of we, it can be seen that Trump is frequently talking about what he and his administration are going to do.
By looking at concordance lines, it can be seen more clearly what exactly he is talking about doing in the future.
It can be seen that the the principle focus appears to be on economics and the financial situation of the American people, although there are also references to Radical Islamis terrorists and education.
More promises about the economy: more jobs, more infrastructure, more planes, and more work for the miners …. beautiful clean coal …
If I look at I, it can be seen that think is a frequent collocate. So, it would be interesting to have a quick look at what Donald Trump is thinking about these days.
He appears to think that he’s doing a good job!
When I looked at the most salient words, again, I found we to be prominent.
We I looked at a collocational network of we, I found that, when ordered by MI scores, military was a strong collocate.
A very pro-military stance, with promises to rebuild what he considers to be a depleted military.
So, after a very quick glance, there appears to be a very strong emphasis on the economy, jobs, money and the military, less on education, the environment and social welfare.
Andrew Brindle 