The construction of a wall along the US/Mexico border was one of the main political platforms upon which the 2016 US presidential election campaign was fought. Ahead of the upcoming 2020 US presidential election, and with the border wall still not yet built or funded, this article uses the authorisation component of Van Leeuwen’s (2007) framework for the discourse of legitimation to show how President Donald J. Trump has sought legitimacy for the construction of the border wall. Data is taken from Trump’s @realDonaldTrump Twitter postings between October 18th, 2018 and February 3rd, 2019, a period inclusive of the longest federal government shutdown in US history. We show how Trump’s Twitter language is frequently accompanied by evidence-less attacks on sources of rival opinion or information, while the president tends to reaffirm himself as the exclusive source of credible and truthful information.

中文翻译：

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特朗普总统的边界墙推特话语中的权威（去）合法化

在美墨边境修建隔离墙是 2016 年美国总统竞选活动的主要政治平台之一。在即将举行的 2020 年美国总统大选之前，由于边界墙尚未建造或资助，本文使用 Van Leeuwen (2007) 合法性话语框架的授权组件来展示唐纳德 J. 特朗普总统如何寻求合法性用于修建边界墙。数据取自特朗普在 2018 年 10 月 18 日至 2019 年 2 月 3 日期间发布的 @realDonaldTrump Twitter 帖子，这一时期包括美国历史上最长的联邦政府关门时期。我们展示了特朗普的推特语言如何经常伴随着对敌对观点或信息来源的无证据攻击，