Political Self-Praise in Clinton–Trump Presidential Debates

The speech act of political self-praise has received scant attention in East Asian contexts, unlike other speech acts. This study aims to explore the strategies of self-praise used by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The 2016 US presidential debates were analysed quantitatively to examine if there are any differences in using self-praise strategies. This was followed by a qualitative analysis to explore how these strategies are linguistically realised. Three main self-praise strategies were used: unmodified explicit self-praise, modified explicit self-praise and indirect self-praise. Within the third category, the data revealed a new self-praise strategy, which we called “criticism-based self-praise”. Moreover, the findings highlighted differences in using self-praise strategies in American political discourse. While Trump employed unmodified explicit self-praise more than his opponent, Clinton used modified explicit self-praise strategies far more than Trump. Trump, however, adopted implicit self-praise strategies more than Clinton. Differences could be attributed to gender stereotypes as well as the candidates’ experience and personality. The study may help East Asian people better understand American political discourse, presidential debates in particular.

This research aims at examining the types of language style based on sentence structure in the 2020 US presidential candidate debate. The purpose of this research is to find out the types of language style based on sentence structure used by Trump and Biden in the 2020 US presidential candidate debate. The data were analyzed by using Keraf’s theory (2006). The data were the sentences that contained languages style based on sentence structure uttered by Trump and Biden, and the sources of data in this research were the two videos of US presidential candidate debate 2020 and its script. This research used qualitative-descriptive techniques and quantitative calculation because the data will be presented in statistic. The results of the study show that from 12 types of language style based on sentence structure, there were 11 types of language style based on sentence structure used by Trump, meanwhile there were 10 types of language style based on sentence structure used by biden. From a total of 241 data, as many as 105 sentences were uttered by Donald Trump and 146 sentences were uttered by Joe Biden in the two videos of 2020 US presidential candidate debate containing language style based on sentence structure.

This study examines the strategic use of hedges and boosters in the first US presidential debate of June 26, 2024, between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. These linguistic devices are crucial in shaping political discourse by modulating confidence and authority. Hedges introduce ambiguity and caution, while boosters amplify certainty and assertiveness. Using the official debate transcript as the primary data source, this analysis employs a qualitative content analysis to identify and categorize these strategies. It highlights distinct usage patterns: Joe Biden frequently uses hedges to express caution and acknowledge complexities, while Donald Trump relies heavily on boosters to project unwavering confidence and decisiveness. Biden’s strategic use of hedges allows him to navigate contentious issues with a balanced tone, while Trump’s emphasis on boosters strengthens his assertive stance and enhances his perceived authority. This research fills a gap in existing literature by specifically analyzing these linguistic devices within the context of presidential debates. The findings provide insights into how both candidates use hedges and boosters to influence voter perceptions and address rhetorical challenges, contributing to a deeper understanding of political communication strategies and their effects on audience reception.

The study deals with the function of swearing in Donaldtrump’sutterances during the presidentialdebate. In this study, the researcher focuses onthe typesand the functionsof swearing inDonald Trump’s utterances during the presidential debate.The research used the descriptive qualitative method.The data were taken from video’s transcript ofAmerica presidential debate in 2016. There were three video’s transcript used as the sample, they were first presidential debate broadcasted on September 26th,2016, second presidential debate broadcasted on October 9th, 2016 and third presidential debate broadcasted on October 19th, 2016.Based on the analysis of data, the findings said that there were five types of swearing in Donald Trump’s utterances during a presidential debate in 2016 namely politic term, religious matter, death term, animal term, and sex or copulative term.However, there were three functions of swearing in Donald trump’s utterances during a presidential debate in 2016 namely descriptive swearing, abusive swearing, and idiomatic swearing. Keywords:Swearing, Taboo words, Sociological Approach, US presidential debate in 2016, Donald Trump

Political journalism continues to be the main source of political information in deliberative democracies. However, the advent of hybrid media systems during the last decade(s) has altered how journalists cover politics and how audiences consume relevant content. In this context, live blogging has emerged as a web-based alternative to traditional TV broadcasting. To explore whether and in which forms the trend toward hybrid media systems is empirically traceable in current journalism practice, the present study focuses on political live blogging from four popular media outlets covering the two 2020 US presidential TV debates. It applies a discourse-oriented, mixed-methods, corpus-based approach and specifically considers sourcing practices as well as the normalization of professional role conceptions and practices of objectivity. Results suggest that political live blogging establishes multi-layered and multi-authored discourse that places strong emphasis on accountability and disclosure transparency by updating and linking information, while maintaining the journalistic gatekeeping/gatewatching function. It further emerges that political live blogs are characterized by an informal tone but also by a continuation of traditional news media practices as regards objectivity, as instantiated by the salience of debate topics and political terms and by a clear delineation of information from opinion and contextualization.

The objective of this study is to find out the differences in verbal and non-verbal communication of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in US presidential debate. The study employs qualitative approach to find out the differences in the use of rhetorical strategies by Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. For the analysis of non-verbal communication, the multimodal framework has been applied to find out the differences in non-verbal communication of both candidates. Moreover, the researcher employs Ekman’s theory of FACS and Birdwhistell’s Kinesics to categorize facial expressions and interpret gestures. The sample of this study is the US 2024 Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. The data is collected from available televised debate on YouTube channel named as ‘The Wall Street Journal’. The findings show that Kamala uses pathos abundantly. Trump is more likely to use hyperbole. Other rhetorical strategies used by both candidates include ethos, logos, parallelism, repetition and use of adjectives. The analysis of non-verbal communication reveals that Kamala displays expressive facial expressions while Trump is more likely to show serious and less expressive facial expressions. It is concluded from the analysis that Trump uses exaggeration (hyperbole) as rhetorical strategy while kamala makes use of emotional appeal (pathos) as a rhetorical strategy more throughout the debate. Kamala is emotional and feminine; Trump is aggressive and masculine. Their non-verbal communicative patterns display gender differences. The limitation of the study is its small sample of comparing the verbal and non-verbal communication styles of only one male and female politician.

The present research aims to investigate the types and functions of interruptions of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during the US presidential debates in 2016. Data collected from Donald Trump's and Hillary Clinton's speech in the debates were transcribed and analyzed to find types and functions of interruptions by both of the candidates. The results of the Conversational Analysis display that Donald Trump dominates the interruptions by applying a substantially greater number of interruptions consisting three different types of interruptions. Butting-in Interruptions were applied by both as the biggest number of interruptions. Data analysis also demonstrates that intrusive functions appear much more frequently compared to the collaborative functions of interruptions applied by the male and female presidential candidates. Discussion as to why such phenomena are noticeable in the data concludes the paper.

The present research aims to investigate the types and functions of interruptions of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during the US presidential debates in 2016. Data collected from Donald Trump's and Hillary Clinton's speech in the debates were transcribed and analyzed to find types and functions of interruptions by both of the candidates. The results of the Conversational Analysis display that Donald Trump dominates the interruptions by applying a substantially greater number of interruptions consisting three different types of interruptions. Butting-in Interruptions were applied by both as the biggest number of interruptions. Data analysis also demonstrates that intrusive functions appear much more frequently compared to the collaborative functions of interruptions applied by the male and female presidential candidates. Discussion as to why such phenomena are noticeable in the data concludes the paper.

Persuasion is an important factor to politicians to show the power and influence the people. In the United States Presidential Election, debate is one of the tools to convey the candidates' message. Most of the utterances used in debates aimed at affecting and convincing the audiences or the voters. Persuasion according to Searle (1979) is regarded as a directive speech act in which the speaker’s intention is to make the hearers to commit him or herself to perform some form of action. Most of the researchers conducted persuasive speech acts from the point of view of discourse. There is no study about natural data like debates. This study is a study about observance of Cialdini’s principles of speech acts of persuasion in 2016 US presidential debates. Therefore, there are six principles that must be observed, namely consistency, authority, reciprocity, social-evidence, preference/ liking and rareness/ scarcity. It used descriptive qualitative method to get the findings. The findings of the study are proved that most of the presidential candidates observed Cialdini’s principles. They used several ways like asking the voter’s need, making a promise, and disfiguring the interlocutors. Finally, this thesis provides suggestion regarding to the findings. At this point, the first plan is to present some tested principles of persuasion in debate classes. Next point is how you might use the principles to increase community interest in your topic, and to win people over, fairly and ethically, to the way of thinking.

This chapter takes an integrative, multi-methodological approach to the analysis of political attacks during presidential debates. Using continuous response measures (CRM) recorded from viewers in real time during the third and final US presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016, we identify an equal number of Trump’s character and issue attacks on Clinton. We then analyze the mean differences in CRM response to these episodes and subject each segment to nonverbal coding to determine candidate display behavior at the time of the incident. Results indicate that viewers, regardless of political party affiliation, penalize Trump more for character attacks than issue attacks. Independents show the most aversion to attacks overall. Several instances of Trump standing behind and appearing to “hover over” Clinton from the second debate were then shown to focus groups to probe the boundaries of norm violations and discern how nonverbal displays exhibited by Trump intensified the perceived aggression of his verbal attacks.

Interruptions and co-construction in the First 2016 Trump–Clinton US presidential debate

A Donald Trump administration would change vaccination schedules to stop an “epidemic” of autism, the candidate said at the Republican Party’s presidential debate on 16 September. Two other Republican candidates...

ABSTRACTPolitical campaigns mostly run parallel to each other during an election cycle, but intersect when the main candidates face off for televised debates. They offer supporters of these candidates a chance to engage with each other while being exposed to views and opinions different from their own. This study uses a combination of social network analysis and machine learning to examine how the three US presidential debates of 2016 were live tweeted (N = ∼300,000). We find that despite cross-cutting exposure across the ideological divide, people remain highly partisan in terms of who they engage with on Twitter. The issue agendas of Twitter posts during the US presidential debates is set well in advance of the debates themselves; it is highly negative and focused on personality traits of the opposition candidate rather than policy matters. We also detect a shift in the nature of online opinion leadership, with grassroots activists and internet personalities sharing the space with traditional elites such as political leaders and journalists. This shift coincides with the broader anti-establishment turn in the US political climate, as reflected in the early success of Bernie Sanders and the eventual victory of a political outsider like Donald Trump over the seasoned Hillary Clinton.

This paper analyzes the role of question reformulations in the 2004 US presidential debates. While formulations used for questioning have received quite some attention in the literature, no studies, to my knowledge, with the exception of Clayman (1993), have been concerned with question reformulations, that is, formulations given in response to questions. In contrast to Clayman (1993) who examined the ‘directness/evasiveness’ of a reformulation as a collaborative achievement involving a question-answer-pursuit sequence, this paper analyzes it as a collaborative achievement involving a question-answer-answer sequence (like a panel news interview). The analysis shows that the reformulations in the 2004 US presidential debates involve a device for adjusting the question and the subsequent answer to the candidate’s (actual and presumed) audience. Thus, the relative ‘directness/evasiveness’ of a candidate’s answer depends on which of the ‘three’ perspectives (/positions) presented by the question-answer-answer sequence that the overhearing audience is most willing to adopt.

ABSTRACTExtant literature shows a positive link between presidential debates and political knowledge, with findings strongest for low-information voters. Considering presidential debates continue to retain a mass audience, they fulfill an invaluable civic function. Less clear is whether knowledge effects hold across debate formats and agenda topics. Using an experimental method that exposes a sample of undergraduate students to the 2012 US presidential debates, this article explores variance in knowledge effects across formats and topics. We find citizens can learn about issues and candidates but debate format and agenda topics may mediate the effects. We discuss the broader democratic implications of these findings and directions for future debate research.