| Levinson puts forward that presupposition focuses on implicative information,and pragmatic presupposition can help people achieve aim of communication;pragmatic presupposition triggers can trigger presupposition,including words,phrases and sentences.Many linguists have conducted research on US presidential election from the perspective of rhetoric and functional linguistics.This thesis analyzes 2016 US presidential first debate from the perspective of lexical and syntactic level based on theoretical framework of pragmatic presupposition triggers.Presidential debates play an important role in US presidential election,serving as the essential part in candidates' success.During the debate,therefore,candidates will try their best to maximize their strength with the aim of achieving their goals,employing measures such as attacking audiences,defending political propositions,emphasizing facts and so on.By comparison,this thesis analyzes pragmatic presupposition triggers of Trump and Clinton in order to find out how they use presupposition triggers to induct specific pragmatic presupposition in debate to help them achieve their goals.The results show that,firstly,Trump and Clinton used seven kinds of lexical pragmatic presupposition triggers and five kinds of syntactic pragmatic presupposition triggers.They both used thirteen types of triggers,but with different frequencies.Secondly,the research indicates that both of the two candidates used specific presupposition triggers to conduct debate,so as to achieve their goals.Thirdly,the research justifies that different presupposition triggers can induct different functions.The thesis is hoped to strengthen readers' understanding of this debate,improve readers' debate skills and shed some light on relevant research. |
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