Political discourse represents a particularly intriguing case study for linguists, as this form of discourse aims to convince the public that the political ideology and decisions are ‘right’ for the nation (Charteris-Black Reference Charteris-Black2011). Studying political discourse therefore means examining the societal impact of language. Lilla Petronella Szabó’s The Person in Politics: Pronouns and Political Personalization in U.S. Presidential Campaigns proposes a highly intriguing analysis that helps readers to perceive what is not always perceptible in political discourse. Indeed, while numerous studies have pointed to the specific features of this form of communication which may not necessarily be observed in other contexts (e.g. legitimization, see Butler Reference Butler2024), Szabó instead concentrates on a feature that all speakers employ on a daily basis: pronouns. Her book enlightens readers regarding the underlying political strategies that surround pronominal usage in presidential campaign speeches of selected US political figures. Notably, her work addresses one main research question: is the use of pronouns related to a personalization strategy, which has evolved to be a dominant factor in political communication (p. 10)? This question is answered through a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach that involves cognitive linguistics, pragmatics and political discourse analysis. In particular, this volume presents findings concerning the evolution of pronominal instances over time (from 1932 to 2024), the distinction between different parties (Democrats and Republicans) and the distinction between politicians’ gender.

The book starts with an introductory chapter, ‘Towards personalized political communications’ (pp. 1–19), which provides a definition of the ‘personalization’ of politics. This occurs when a politician refers to their own private life rather than alluding to their party or to the government, thereby promoting their own interests at the expense of the collective. Szabó illustrates the different characteristics of personalization, such as the increase of individual politicians’ visibility, the politicization of their private life and the declining significance of political parties. Chapter 1 also introduces the linguistic characteristics of personalization under study, namely person deixis: first-person singular pronouns and first-person plural pronouns in the subjective (I/we), objective (me/us) and genitive (my/our, mine/ours) case, and as reflexive pronouns (myself/ourselves).

Chapter 2, ‘Personalized politics: Causes and effects’ (pp. 20–53), relates to the history of US politics and demonstrates how it has developed in accordance with societal evolution. The rise of social media platforms is increasingly turning voters into ‘followers’ and policy-makers into ‘human beings’ (p. 32). This political progress is described in terms of different Ages, such as the post-World War II politics, the spread of television in households, the diversity of media outlets and the popularization of the internet. The argument is that these Ages ultimately favored more person-centered styles of communication. Szabó explains the different forms of personalization: institutional (prime-ministerial power, primary elections), media (coverage focused on individual political actors) and behavioral (construction of public image associated with politicians’ personal lives). The author adds that gendered personalization needs to be documented, as female and male behaviors differ in the political arena (p. 48).

Chapter 3, ‘The language of political personalization: Deixis and image schemas’ (pp. 54–84), focuses specifically on deixis and associated pronouns (first-person singular and first-person plural forms). In particular, Szabó proposes a compelling discussion of deictic language associated with bodily experiences, such as contextual references and conventions (e.g. ‘we’, ‘here’, ‘tonight’, p. 55). This cognitive interpretation, in conjunction with the study of political communication, is justified as follows:

This perspective on deixis leads to a description of relevant ‘image schemas’, here understood as humans’ perceptual experience of the spatial structure being mapped onto the conceptual structure (Johnson Reference Johnson1987). For example, the center–periphery image schema is often observed in political communication: one’s political views and the social and cultural environment in which one exists designate the center. Other political views and social and cultural contexts exist towards the periphery from the individual’s center (p. 72). Additionally, the metaphors known as emotional intimacy is proximity and intimacy is closeness (Kövecses Reference Kövecses1995; Grady Reference Grady1997) are built respectively on the subjective experience of intimacy and the sensorimotor experience of being physically close. Consequently, they can create ‘peer effects’ but also ‘segregation effects’ (Winter & Matlock Reference Winter, Matlock and Hampe2017). Deictic understanding is based on the center–periphery image schema and is structured by these two metaphors.

Chapter 4, ‘The politics of pronouns, the pronouns of politics’ (pp. 85–97), proposes a shift towards pragmatic readings of pronouns, with reference to the cognitive interpretation aforementioned. Through the first-person singular pronoun, the speaker designates themselves as the center and determines the relative distance of other people and things relative to the speaker in a communicative situation (p. 86). Accordingly, the politician directs the audience’s attention to the politician themselves, which enables them to speak from the deictic center and construe the world the way they see it. In contrast, the analysis of the first-person plural pronoun involves a more complex process: we can be inclusive (so that it involves the speaker and the addressee) or exclusive (so that it involves the speaker and another third party). Szabó proposes a nuanced discussion of the first-person plural pronoun by distinguishing three categories: when we refers to the speaker’s family, when it refers to the speaker’s party, and when it refers to the speaker’s nation (p. 88).

Chapter 5, ‘Operationalizing pronouns in politics: The method of a linguistic analysis’ (pp. 98–115), illustrates the methods associated with the data-driven analysis of pronouns. This study aims to establish whether the use of the first-person singular pronoun and the references to the speaker’s family and the speaker’s nation have increased, and whether the references to the speaker’s party have decreased in political campaign addresses produced between 1932 and 2024. To this aim, Szabó relies on a corpus comprised of 48 nomination acceptance speeches with a balanced distribution: 24 from the Democratic Party and 24 from the Republican Party. The interpretation of data relies on the center–periphery image schema, the emotional intimacy is proximity and intimacy is closeness metaphors, and associated metonymies (e.g. ‘Washington’ for the US government, p. 107) by drawing on a radial model that encapsulates the distance of the different categories of first-person plural pronouns (family, party, nation) relative to the speaker.

Chapter 6, ‘A linguistic analysis of personalization in politics: Results and discussion’ (pp. 116–34), presents a detailed, qualitative and quantitative analysis of the pronouns in the corpus. The discussion starts with the distinction between the use of first-person singular and first-person plural pronouns across political parties. This comparison clearly establishes personalizing tendencies over time in Democratic and Republican speeches. The results also show that in Democratic political discourse collective references (including family, party and nation) are more prevalent than individual references. In contrast, in Republican campaigning the individual was more accentuated over the years, and collective references remained at a relatively even level (p. 119). Concerning the trends for each specific category associated with the first-person plural pronoun, the analysis demonstrates that references to the speaker’s family appeared in 1984 and have persisted since then. The references to the speaker’s party started to decrease in the 1980s (after an increase between 1932 and 1970). Furthermore, the references to the speaker’s nation have steadily increased between 1984 and 2020. These quantitative results are followed by a qualitative discussion regarding the contextual uses of the first-person plural pronoun: the references to the speaker’s family focus on their parents and children; the references to the speaker’s party serve to establish a distinction between the Democrat and the Republican parties and present political achievements and vision for the future; and the references to the speaker’s nation comprise descriptions of the past contrasted with descriptions of the present.

Chapter 7, ‘Political personalization in detail: Case studies’ (pp. 135–63), demonstrates how the quantitative findings discussed in chapter 6 coincide with the qualitative observations related to four specific presidential nomination acceptance speeches: Barack Obama’s in 2008, Ronald Reagan’s in 1984, Mitt Romney’s in 2012 and Kamala Harris’ in 2024. First, Szabó focuses on the personalization strategies through the use of pronouns in Obama’s and Reagan’s speeches. Obama reflected on his grandmother’s story in a political setting (p. 140) and adopted a ‘conversational’ style by addressing the audience directly (e.g. don’t tell me, p. 140). He also referred to past presidents in an attempt to find unity across the two parties (p. 142). In contrast, Reagan referred to his own political journey and his individual political records in order to adopt a professional and authoritative perspective (p. 144). He also emphasized Republican values to denigrate the Democratic Party (p. 145). As a result, Reagan’s speech is more individual-centered than Obama’s, who referred to his whole office (p. 148). Second, Szabó examines women’s experiences in the political arena as compared to men’s. For instance, it can be assumed that women may be less likely to adopt a personalization strategy for fear that it would make them look less professional (p. 150). However, the findings show that both Romney and Harris blurred the line between the personal and the political. Romney aimed to distance himself from his career as venture capitalist and CEO and focused on his personal and professional resilience, through references to his role as a father and his past civilian job (p. 154). Harris directed the attention to her political self: she referred to the civil rights movement that led her to become a lawyer, and she alluded to policy-related topics with stories of her mother (p. 158). Harris also made her case to the whole of the United States, which is in line with the diminishing relevance of political parties (p. 161).

Chapter 8, ‘Pronouns, politics, and personalization: Conclusion’ (pp. 164–73), concludes the book. Szabó reflects on the quantitative and qualitative results discussed in chapters 6 and 7 to provide explicit answers to her research question regarding the personalization tendencies through the uses of pronouns in US politicians’ presidential campaign speeches. She finds that both first-person singular and plural pronouns exhibit a general growing tendency in Democrat and Republican speeches (p. 165). An increase in first-person singular pronominal references demonstrates that politicians gradually referred to themselves as individuals. Regarding the evolution of the uses of the first-person plural pronoun, Szabó observes that references to the speaker’s family and nation increased, while references to the speaker’s party decreased. These results effectively suggest a steady personalization process in the US politicians’ speeches. Chapter 8 subsequently provides a reflection on the contributions offered by this scholarly work through a comparison of existing literature with the findings presented in this volume. Notably, Szabó shows that the process of political personalization has left an imprint on how language is used in politics, particularly since 1984 (p. 166). This chapter also explains that personal and historical-political factors can shape personalization: the author acknowledges that individual candidates were not equally connected to their political party (e.g. Reagan claimed that he was the ‘embodiment’ of the party while Carter conceded that he could not make any promises to Democratic politicians, p. 168). The book ends with final recommendations for the study of personalized language in political communication by highlighting that personalization can either bring people together or alienate members of different parties from each other (p. 173).

The Person in Politics: Pronouns and Political Personalization in U.S. Presidential Campaigns adopts an interdisciplinary approach to thoroughly study US political communication through the lenses of cognitive linguistics, pragmatics and political discourse analysis. The contributions offered by this book are impressive and they involve a large range of factors that characterize personalization: evolution over time, distinction between political parties and distinction between speakers’ gender. The specific focus on pronouns makes the research easy to relate to: one may quickly understand the different meanings and inferences supported by the use of I or we. Szabó’s detailed discussion conclusively highlights and illustrates the way in which pronouns are used as part of a wider, more implicit, political strategy. The question underlying the personalization tendency in political communication reflects current debates, happening in many countries, that can be disentangled thanks to the clear and comprehensive explanations provided by the author. For example, the discussion of political personalization may explain citizens’ support to the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, which lasted even after his conviction for corruption in 2024 (Le Monde, 21 October 2025). This event illustrates citizens’ appeal to the political person instead of an interest in the political party (led by a different political figure). In fact, the first four chapters of the book interestingly resort to data in languages other than English (e.g. Hungarian), which further establishes the global relevance of Szabó’s research while also triggering attention towards linguistic and cultural nuances.

This linguistic work is well written, and arguments are systematically clarified and explained. What I appreciate the most is the significant use of examples extracted from various political speeches: the illustrative selection creates an explicit link between existing theories and the speeches and, more broadly, between the speeches and the politicians’ personalization strategies. Therefore, even if readers may not necessarily be familiar with certain theoretical approaches, one can still appreciate the book’s significant contributions, as it consistently presents meaningful comments on relevant concepts. Similarly, the quantitative results presented in chapter 6 are systematically complemented by a qualitative analysis of extracts from political speeches, so that personalization is not only understood in terms of numbers but also in terms of contextual factors. In this regard, chapter 7 presents a fascinating analysis centered on gender and gendered linguistics, a theme which is still an understudied issue in political communication despite representing a highly significant aspect to consider in research. Therefore, this book would be of interest not only to linguists specialized in US language use, but also to scholars engaged in political discourse, identity construction and citizens’ reception. Szabó’s work will also appeal to other scholars, notably political scientists, since the structure of the work is reader-friendly and addresses many characteristics of political discourse.