Constructing or Disrupting Peace through Language: A Peace Linguistics Analysis of the Trump-Zelensky Diplomatic Discourse

Abstract

This study examined how the communicative styles of President Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky influenced the construction or disruption of peace in their February 28, 2025 Oval Office meeting. Employing Critical Discourse Analysis and anchored in Friedrich’s peace linguistics and Cohen’s intercultural diplomacy framework, this probed into differences of the two leaders’ communicative styles and what cross-cultural challenges arise from these differences. It analyzed how these styles and challenges contribute to the construction or disruption of peace in their discourse and ultimately analyzed the role of language in conflict resolution. The findings reveal that Zelensky commonly used a high-context, formal, and relational style in his discourse, marked by affiliative politeness, inclusive pronouns, mitigation, dignified-restoring resistance, and appeals to norms and shared values. In contrast, Trump’s discourse was characterized by a low-context, informal, and dominance-oriented style as exemplified by his use of gambling metaphor, evaluative language, transactional framing, interactional control, self-promotion, and adversarial discourse. These differing codes often created tension that undermined trust and cooperation in the meeting. Zelensky’s language, which cultivates empathy and shared responsibility, conforms to peace-linguistic principles while Trump’s language, which often underscores hierarchy and personal credit, often disrupted these efforts. This shows that language is central to diplomatic conflict resolution. It proves how language can either build trust and mutual recognition that peace requires, or reinforce competition and mistrust. This study affirms the need for conscious, culturally-sensitive, and peace-oriented language in high-stakes diplomatic communication.