| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺北科技大學 === 應用英文系 === 107 === It is an art to cope with difficult questions as it is impolite to respond with silence or ignorance. Celebrities, in particular, often have to deal with touchy questions in public. Previous studies on political discourse mostly concentrate on the strategies of evasion because political discourses are full of equivocation (Harris, 1991; Jucker, 1986). Equivocation becomes the common approach selected in the tense atmosphere in particular, and has become a significant issue in the political discourse due to its frequent appearance in political contexts.
The 2016 US presidential election is rather exceptional, given the enormous contrast between the candidates in many respects, including gender, political experience, and career. This research is motivated by the “surprising” election result contrary to journalistic estimation and polls—that Trump, amateur politician, defeat the adept politician Clinton. This study explores the evasive responses the candidates adopted and Donald Trump’s tactics with the particular aim to interpret his distinctive ways of evasion within current equivocation theories.
In order to investigate the research questions, the quantitative analysis is conducted within Bull and Mayer’s (1993) model to delve into the candidates’ evasive responses. In addition, the qualitative analysis is implemented within the conversation analysis to interpret Trump’s distinctive strategies.
The statistics indicate that Trump contributes more replies and non‐replies than Clinton, and Trump is more evasive than Clinton in terms of overall non-reply rates. Additionally, Clinton is more inclined to reply to questions whereas Trump is more liable to employ evasive strategies. Nevertheless, regarding the tendency to reply to (or evade from) questioning, both candidates provide more replies than non‐replies.
Trump’s unorthodox behavior against the order and orderliness of political debates as an institutional talk includes (a) excessive interruption, (b) switching his role from an interviewee to the interviewer, and (c) questioning the fairness of the debates in an outspoken manner. These strategies are similar in the sense that they are aberrant from the conventions and against the public expectations. The objectives of these approaches are in essence to detriment the rival’s face and reinforce his positive face. In short, these tactics of Trump originate from his enthusiastic intention to win; accordingly, he would rather represent himself as freely as he expects than be framed within systematic regulation.
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