Persuasion in the use of functional and ideological strategies in Trump and Clinton's 2016 presidential debates
Studies on political debates have mainly emphasised on critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a means of analysing the politicians' speeches. This study explores the functional and ideological strategies used by Hillary Clinton and her rival Donald Trump in the presidential debates (PDs) of...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/98764/1/FBMK%202021%2047%20UPMIR.pdf |
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| Summary: | Studies on political debates have mainly emphasised on critical discourse
analysis (CDA) as a means of analysing the politicians' speeches. This study explores
the functional and ideological strategies used by Hillary Clinton and her rival
Donald Trump in the presidential debates (PDs) of the U.S. 2016. The study adopts
Benoit's (2007) functional theory and van Dijk's (2000a) ideological strategies for its
analytical framework.
However, rare previous studies have investigated PDs from the U.S. presidential
election campaign using Benoit functional theory combined with van Dijk
ideological strategies in addition to the Critical Discourse Analysis method. And scarce
studies deal with ideology and/or persuasion in the U.S. 2016 PDs. Studies that
exist paid no attention to how ideological and functional strategies could appeal and
persuade the audience.
The current study is analysing functions and ideologies which the PCs used as ways to
persuade the audience. Also, it looks at which of the ideological strategies used that
overlap with the functional categories in order to further see the strategies within the
functions. Hence, by looking at these overlaps and marking the types of strategies used
in tandem with the functions, one can perhaps assume how each PC attempts to
persuade and convince the audience.
The research objectives of this study aim to, first, determine the ideological strategies
used under the functional strategies that are utilised by Trump and Clinton in the U.S.
2016 PDs; second, analyse the functional strategies (i.e. acclaim, attack, and defence
that are based on topics) which are used by both presidential candidates (PCs)
to persuade the voters. Third, it seeks to compare Trump and Clinton’s use of
ideological and functional strategies in relation to persuasion; fourth, explain the prominent role of Trump and Clinton's presidential debates in shaping their
preferability as best candidate for a president to the voters.
Data was collected from The Times New York website, and a qualitative approach
is adopted in analysing the data using ATLAS.ti.7 software programme. The findings
revealed, after drawing a comparison to the strategies used by both PCs, that the
dominant ideological strategies are: interaction and context, negative other-presentation, vagueness, generalisation, polarisation, populism, actor description,
number game, positive self-presentation, disclaimers, repetition, and norm expression.
In addition, the functional strategies that are used by Trump and Clinton are attack,
acclaim, and defence based on policy and character. In relation to the PCs, these
strategies, according to Benoit (2007), represent one of the keys that can be used in
winning the election campaign, because the voters may be persuaded by the PC who
uses these strategies efficiently compared to the rival. The findings of the study show
that the voters may be persuaded by the ideological and functional strategies used by
both PCs, and they would vote for the most suitable PC. Also, the findings indicate that
the sequence of using the functional strategies, which is attack, acclaim, defence, differ
from that stated in Benoit's (2007) functional theory (acclaim, attack, defence). That is,
the findings that concern with Benoit's functional theory reveal that this theory needs
some improvements to address the use of the strategy of attack rather than acclaim as
observed in the U.S. 2016 PDs. |
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