A Functional Analysis of 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Debates

Argumentation - Tập 20 - Trang 209-225 - 2006
GivenName> L. Benoit1, Andrew A. Klyukovski2
1Department of Communication, University of Missouri, Columbia, USA
2Language and literature Truman Sate University, Language and Literature, Kirksville, USA

Tóm tắt

Political leaders’ debates are an important and highly visible instances of public argumentation. As such, they merit scholarly attention. This essay applies the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to analyze televised presidential debates from the Ukraine in 2004. Overall, this analysis revealed that acclaims were the most common function, followed by attacks and then defenses. Policy was addressed more often than character in these debates, as expected. The incumbent candidate acclaimed significantly more and attacked less than the challenger. The incumbents used past deeds significantly more often to acclaim – and less to attack – than the challengers. Finally, general goals and ideals were used more as the basis for acclaims than attacks in these debates. Implications of these results are discussed.

Tài liệu tham khảo

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