‘Going negative’: An APPRAISAL analysis of the rhetoric of Donald Trump on Twitter

This article explores a selection of the tweets of President Donald Trump, specifically in relation to his use of negativity as a rhetorical political strategy. The study is guided by a corpus-based comparative keyword analysis and the analytical framework of APPRAISAL, from Systemic Functional Linguistics, which is concerned with the language of evaluation. The study reveals that in order to carry out an approach of ‘going negative’, Trump utilises the APPRAISAL system in a variety of ways, with the ultimate aim to attack and undermine the character of his political opponent. •Negativity directed to Hillary Clinton supports the ‘going negative’ political strategy.•Trump utilises a range of APPRAISAL resources in his tweets.•Trump textures his tweets by shifting between resources to suit his purpose.