A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE US PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES

Abstract

This study focuses on describing and analyzing some discourse features in term of the layout features, syntactic features, cohesive devices and stylistic features used in the US Presidential Debates from 1988 to 2012. From this study, we find out some discourse features used in the US Presidential Debates. Firstly, the layout analysis shows that there are three main parts in a debate: Introduction, Main body and Conclusion. Secondly, the lexical features, it shows that bias words and phrases are commonly used; word is used as a propaganda language, and personal pronouns. Thirdly, syntactic features, with the use of active voice are more than passive voice to minimize the ambiguity and the misunderstanding. Simple sentence is the most used in USPDs. The next one is cohesive devices, consisting of repetition, conjunction, reference. Repetition to emphasize on the ideas that speaker wants to express. And conjunction aim at linking, connecting ideas. The last one is about stylistic devices; it’s clearly that the rhetorical question is used commonly in order to make the high result in debates.