Presuppositions In American Presidential Debates

This thesis is a tentative investigation into the employment of presuppositions inAmerican televised presidential debates, on a basis of Adaptation Theory proposed byVerschueren (2000). It aims to find out the main strategic use of presuppositions, theiradaptation to the discourse world of politics, to the physical world and to the mentalworld, which contribute to the refutation and persuasion in presidential debates.There is a long tradition in philosophy and linguistics of inquiring into theproblem of presupposition, and inspiration can be drawn from certain earlierresearchers, but there are no prior works that explore the particular area that this thesisseeks to investigate. The linguistic studies almost all focus on how presuppositionoperates in the sentence, or the use of presupposition in other areas, such asadvertising; while political scientists are concerned more with politics than withlinguistic patterns.Having a long history, debate is a kind of conversational practice of comparingand contrasting ideas frequently occurring in our work, study and daily life. Languagehas a powerful influence over people and their behavior. This is especially true in thefield of political debates. The choice of language to convey specific messages with theintention of influencing people is vitally important. As a very important topic inlinguistics especially in pragmatics, presupposition is frequently employed in order toenhance the effects of persuasion in debates because of its own special properties andcharacteristics. A speaker with the knowledge of presupposition may control thewhole conversation and get out of his awkward situation when suffering fromlanguage attacks.According to the Adaptation Theory, the adoption of presuppositions inpresidential debates is the process of linguistic choice. This thesis studies thetranscripts of the past 23 American televised presidential debates from 1960 to 2004, with the 1982 Regan-Anderson debate excluded, as Anderson is an independent,which does not conform to the focus of this study on the adaptative nature ofpresuppositions used by major presidential candidates (Democrats and Republicans).Through the analysis of the past 23 debates, it is realized that presupposition isadopted in the words of all candidates to make their attacks more concealable, andtheir words more polite thus persuasive. The study first examines the existing studiesof presupposition and debates, and then conducts a review on the theoretic frameworkof Adaptation Theory. Last but most important, the study points out that the strategicuse of presuppositions is intended to satisfy the communicative needs in the debates,and then it discusses how candidates use presuppositions to adapt to the needs of thediscourse world of politics—being concealable, self-protecting, polite, influential andpersuasive, how they use presuppositions to adapt to the need of the physicalworld—being economical as presidential debates are time-limited, also how they usepresuppositions to adapt to the mental world, including the intentions of thecandidates and the expectations of the audience. All in all, the use of presuppositionscan meet all the needs mentioned above in the debating process.Through a tentative study, this thesis may deepen people's understanding ofpresupposition and its adaptative properties in American televised presidential debates.It is hoped that people can understand presidential debates better and conductarguments more powerfully.