The strategic self: Functional differentiation of first-person singular reference in presidential nomination speeches

This study examines how presidential candidates construct multifaceted political identity through first-person singular pronouns in U.S. nomination acceptance speeches from 1944 to 2020. Employing Systemic Functional Linguistics as the analytical framework, the research identifies six functionally distinct roles of ‘I’ through corpus analysis of 2613 instances across 38 speeches, each role characterized by specific combinations of process type and temporal orientation. These roles address three rhetorical imperatives that candidates must navigate simultaneously: establishing authority, building credibility, and articulating vision. Analysis indicates the persistence of all six roles across the 76-year period, while their distribution remains closely comparable across party lines, suggesting they reflect demands intrinsic to the acceptance speech rather than partisan preference or individual style. This study provides a replicable approach for analyzing functional differentiation in pronoun usage, connecting grammatical features with communicative functions and identity construction in political discourse.