VINCENT - The Religious Rhetoric of U.S. Presidential Candidate : a corpus linguistics approach to the... rhetorical god gap.

Drawing on corpus linguistic methods of analysis, this book critically examines the rhetorical God gap in American political discourse between the Democratic and Republican parties. The volume investigates the claims (which have often not been substantiated by quantitative data in the literature and have tended to focus on particular genres of political discourse) that there is a correlation between a higher degree of religiosity in Republican political discourse and voting preferences for the party and that Democratic politicians should engage in similar discourse toward closing the gap. The book adopts a keyword approach, using such techniques as collocation analyses, concordance reading, and Bible-specific N-gram identification, toward the study of a corpus of general campaign speeches over a 50-year period, and links findings from this data with social and cultural contextual factors to provide a more informed understanding of rhetorical patterns in religiously laden political language. The volume showcases the value of corpus linguistic methods in interrogating claims around political language and their broader applicability in linguistic research, making this key reading for students and scholars in corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, American politics, and religious studies.

Arnaud Vincent is an invited professor of linguistics at the Universit Saint-LouisBruxelles and scientific collaborator at the Centre for English Corpus Linguistics, Universit Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. He holds a masters degree in American studies from Antwerp University and a PhD in linguistics from the Universit Catholique de Louvain.

Edited by Tony McEnery

Lancaster University, UK

Michael Hoey

Liverpool University, UK

Metaphor, Cancer and the End of Life

A Corpus-Based Study

Elena Semino, Zsfia Demjn, Andrew Hardie, Sheila Payne and Paul Rayson

Understanding Metaphor through Corpora

A Case Study of Metaphors in Nineteenth Century Writing

Katie J. Patterson

TESOL Student Teacher Discourse

A Corpus-Based Analysis of Online and Face-to-Face Interactions

Elaine Riordan

Corpus Approaches to Contemporary British Speech

Sociolinguistic Studies of the Spoken BNC2014

Edited by Vaclav Brezina, Robbie Love and Karin Aijmer

Multilayer Corpus Studies

Amir Zeldes

Self-Reflexive Journalism

A Corpus Study of Journalistic Culture and Community in The Guardian

Anna Marchi

The Religious Rhetoric of U.S. Presidential Candidates

A Corpus Linguistics Approach to the Rhetorical God Gap

Arnaud Vincent

Triangulating Corpus Linguistics with other Linguistic Research Methods

Edited by Jesse Egbert and Paul Baker

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Advances-in-Corpus-Linguistics/book-series/SE0593

First published 2020

by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2020 Taylor & Francis

The right of Arnaud Vincent to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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ISBN: 978-0-367-14126-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-03038-3 (ebk)

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To Jack and Fanny, for being the best teachers ever
To Julie, Hlose and Lucie, with all my love

Writing this book has been the final step of a very long journey which I certainly did not plan to embark on a few years ago. It is because several people believed in me more than I ever did myself that I eventually undertook it and ventured into territories that I thought were not accessible to me. We all make history in our own ways. This is what Professor John Alonzo Dickor Jack as he likes to be calledwrote to me once. I do not know how much history I have made so farprobably very littlebut I know for certain that Jack has played a major role in my own history. As a professor of American studies, he was the one who introduced me to the American way of religion. He was also the first person to nudge me into undertaking a PhD research on politics and religion and accompanied me during the entire process. I will be forever grateful to him for leading me in that direction. I voluntarily refrained from talking about the book with Jackalthough his insights would undoubtedly have enriched itas I wanted it to be a surprise for him and a tribute to all he has done for me. Jack is one of the persons to whom I would like to dedicate this book.

I will also be forever grateful to Professor Fanny Meunier who served as my PhD advisor with true kindness, good humour, great wit and a never fading trust in my ability. Although I defended my thesis back in 2014, Fanny has always been there for me ever since, including for the present book. I have lost count of all the ways I am indebted to Fanny, but Fanny does not keep count. She supports her students and colleagues and helps them become better versions of themselves. She truly is one of the best teachers and colleagues I have been fortunate to work with. I want to dedicate the book to her too.

I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Professor Tony McEnery, first for serving as a member of my PhD jury, then for inviting me to Lancaster University to present my research, andabove allfor believing in me and nudging me into writing the present book while at a conference in Sienna. Never would I have considered working on such a project if it had not been for Tonys encouragements.

I am grateful to Professor Michael Hoey for his generosity in providing insightful feedback on a very short notice. Of course, all remaining mistakes are mine alone.

I feel very fortunate to have this book published by Routledge. I want to thank Elysse Preposi, Alexandra Simmons, Helena Parkinson and Autumn Spalding for guiding me through the many steps that publishing involves. I am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Most important of all, I want to dedicate the book to my wife Julie and my two daughters Hlose and Lucie. Julie has accompanied me to conferences, read countless drafts and always offered an attentive ear to my never-ending doubts, all in the midst of her wonderfully successful career and a happybut really busyfamily life. It is no exaggeration to say that Julie has been our familys rock, and I feel so fortunate to have met her and married her. To Lucie and Hlose I owe countless hugs, games not yet played, fun still to be had, and probably some less daddy-friendly activities too (doing nails is not an option though). In spite of all these missed opportunities, they have remained wonderfully patient and understanding. Most of all, they have brought us joy and true meaning in our lives.