Bordering Work in Contemporary Political Discourse: The Case of the U.S./Mexico Border Wall Proposal

In this paper I use a critical discourse analytic approach to investigate how President Trump’s campaign goal to build a wall along the U.S./Mexico border has been discussed in United States political discourse. The data analyzed are 30 videotaped speeches and other public events which are publically available from the cable news channel “C-SPAN’s” online video archive. The analysis focuses on the communicative techniques and strategies used to persuade others and justify one’s position in the interactions and events studied. In this paper I show how the border wall proposal is reformulated into a debate about border security, and how diverse ways of referring to persons without approved documentation are used to support arguments on both sides of the debate.