A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The 2016 First US Presidential Debate On TV

The US presidential election is about the operation and the trend of the US national power.The presidential debates in the US presidential campaign play an important role in the outcome of the campaign,and sometimes even determine the final outcome.Candidates use a variety of discursive strategies to proclaim their own policies,attack the opponent and defend for himself or herself in order to get more votes.The texts of presidential debates are typical political discourses.From the perspective of critical discourse analysis,using discourse-historical approach as the main analytical tool and pragmatic presupposition as an auxiliary tool,this paper analyzes the text of the 2016 first US presidential debate.In discourse-historical approach,Wodak regards power,ideology and history as three interdependent concepts,and puts forward the following three aspects in analyzing power relations and ideology in the discourse: after having identified the specific contents or topics of a specific discourse,discursive strategies are investigated.Then linguistic means(as types)and the specific,context-dependent linguisitc realizations(as tokens)are examined(Reisigl and Wodak,2009: 93).This paper tries to analyze the discursive strategies,especially the topoi in the strategy of argumentation in the selected data.It aims to help readers get a correct and comprehensive understanding of political discourse from the perspective of linguistics.It is found that each candidate adopt discursive strategies frequently in order to build a positive self-image and represent the tendency of value.Pragmatic presuppositions used by candidates in the debate have different functions.They can make the candidates' language more succinct,such as the use of proper nouns.They can make political discourse more concealed,such as the use of counter-factual conditions.They can guide the audience and make the discourse more persuasive,such as the use of interrogative sentence.They can add humor to discourse,such as the use of factive verbs.Pragmatic presuppositions can also help candidates to protect themselves,such as the use of noun phrases with a definite article.This study is helpful for readers to understand political discourses,demystify the real intentions in discourses,and improve readers' critical awareness.It is also a guidance for readers to achieve his or her communication goal with the use of discursive strategies.