Speech acts in Political Debates: An Analysis of the 2016 American and Taiwanese Presidential Debates

• Main Authors: Thomas J.Moran, 黃晨峰
• Other Authors: Hui-chi Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/ggkpna

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 外國語文學系 === 106 === This thesis explores the types of address forms found speech acts of political debates in English and Mandarin Chinese and how politeness is communicated. In this study we focus on forms of address to determine the degree of politeness which is used by both male and female candidates when opposing one another in political debate. Lee (2011) defines address forms as “a marker, by tradition or law, which precedes a reference to a person who holds a title or post, or to the office itself.” This definition extends to any use of language to address members in these debates, including pronouns and proper nouns. Following the collection and descriptive analysis of this data, the politeness of these speech acts is discussed. The analysis of the discourse of these political debates between male and female candidates utilizes Searle’s Speech Act Theory (1969), Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory (1987), and Grice’s Cooperative Principles (1970). Additionally, the cooperative nature of the debates in the context of gender linguistics (Lakoff, 1973, 2003) is discussed. Within the variety of speech acts, this analysis is only concerned with commissive speech acts. Commissive speech acts are found to be more common in political debate (Al-Bantany, 2014). These types of speech acts are defined as the acts speakers use to commit themselves to some future action and include promises, threats, refusals, guarantees, volunteering, and offering. These speech acts used in combination with address forms are clear indicators of a candidate’s politeness in this type of discourse. The data is compiled directly from the transcripts of the debates. The findings show the differences in male and female speech in political debate especially with regard to politeness. This thesis provides for a gap in the research regarding politeness in political debates between male and female candidates in English and in Mandarin Chinese.