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Pragmatic Analysis of Politeness Strategies in Some Selected Presidential

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Al-Mustansiriya University
College Of Arts
Department of English Language and
Literature
Linguistics

Pragmatic Analysis of Politeness

Strategies in Some Selected
Presidential Debates

Key words: (Debates, Politeness, Strategies)

A Paper Introduced

By:

Asst. Prof. Abbas Lutfi Hussein (Ph.D.) Kais Muhammed Raheem

April, 2016
1

Abstract
Politeness strategies are formulated in order to maintain the addressee’s ‘face’.
Normally, people attempt to avoid performing ‘face-threatening acts’ (FTA's)
towards others, which usually make them feel annoyed. Face-threatening acts are
speech acts that infringe on the addressee’s wants. Politeness strategies are
developed for the main purpose of mitigating the impact of FTA's. In addition,
reverse effects can result when these strategies are used to deliberately boost the
severity of FTA’s rather than mitigating them. That is, politeness strategies can be
used contrariwise to increase the risk on the recipient’s face.
In presidential debates, candidates attempt to construct a positive image about
themselves in the eyes of the audience, as a means of persuasion, through verbal
communication. That is, a candidate is expected to display courteous verbal
behaviours to demonstrate a better communicative competence to bolster their repute
by means of linguistic politeness strategies. At the same time, the debaters endeavour
to discredit the adversary’s image to win the game through manipulating these
strategies contrariwise to boost FTA’s.
The current study aims at investigating and analyzing the pragmatic aspects of
politeness strategies in some selected excerpts taken from six US presidential
debates.

1. Presidential Debates
Presidential debates are seen as a prevalent aspect of the presidential campaign
trail (Nožičková, 2013: 16). Dailey, Hinck and Hinck (2008, 12) define a presidential
debate as “a side-by-side comparison”. Marks (2014: 4), in his more detailed
definition, states that:

Televised presidential debates are a medium through which candidates can express
themselves in an environment that is fair game—in other words, it’s ultimately the
candidates who are competing on the debate floor, not their fundraisers, their field
organizers, or their volunteers.
2

According to Benoit (1999: 2), most scholars endorse that these encounters are
not “really” debates but rather they are simply “joint press conferences.” Auer (1962:
147) describes these confrontations as “counterfeit debates” and as “a double public
press conference for simultaneous interviewing”. Jamieson and Birdsell (1988: 6)
coin the phrase “joint press conference” to characterize presidential debates.
According to Savický (2010: 13), the institutional format of the
communication in presidential debates is minutely regulated by the moderators
whose functions are to control topics, positing comments and ask questions,
monitoring time, and to grant an equitable space for turn-taking for each of the
present contenders. Moreover, the audience constitute another party involved in the
communicative even of the presidential debate (Savický, 2010: 13).

1.1. Power of Debate Participants

Hinck and Hinck (2002: 235) point out that on the stage of a presidential
debate, contenders are assumed to have equal power, “so that the deciding difference
is measured in terms of one’s arguments, not wealth, title, or prestige”.
According to Garcia-Pastor (2007: 65), debaters’ relation with audience clearly
involves power dissimilarity; while the latter possess the utmost power, the former
are powerful to a lesser extent on the basis of persuader/persuadee considerations.
The audience’s maximum power results from the contestants’ obvious reduction of
their own based on the "paradox of persuasive politeness" defining power (Schulze
1987: 29). This paradox entails that contestants apparently minimize their power in
order to demonstrate a modest and humble image of themselves before the public, at
the same time that they claim power in and through their interventions. According
to Schulze (ibid.), candidates’ obvious power reduction is no more than the granting
of symbolic power to the audience while keeping their institutional power in such a
way that the ‘paradox’ is dissolved. As such, candidates’ relationship with the
moderator represents a ‘deference politeness system’ (Scollon and Scollon 1995: 45)
characterised by considerable social distance they constantly attempt to minimize,
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and almost similar mutually respected institutional power with the moderator who
constitutes, however, the most powerful party.

1.2. Persuasion

“What is debating? Debating is about persuasion” (Commission on Presidential

Debates, 2005: 1). This claim presumes that the ultimate goal a candidate aims to
attain in presidential debates, (and many other electoral debates), is to persuade the
audience. Following Lakoff (1981: 28), Garcia-Pastor (2007: 13) defines persuasion
in presidential debates as follows:

The attempt or intention of [a politician] to change the behaviour, feelings, intentions

or viewpoint of [the audience] by communicative means ... [that] may be linguistic
or nonlinguistic (say, gestures), but they are abstract and symbolic.

According to Mshvenieradze (2013: 1940), a presidential candidate has to

persuade the audience in validity of his position, and cause the electorate to change
their mind to his favoured judgment or action for advocating the nominee in future.
According to Charaudeau (2005: 16) “to impact on audience with words means to
change their existing mental status”. That is why every candidate in presidential
debate definitely resorts to employ argumentation, that is, various strategies of the
art of persuasion are employed to achieve the ultimate objective in the debate. For
achieving such a goal, a candidate should take into account and regard the
significance, feeling and belief of the electorate to which he appeals to (ibid.).
In presidential debate contexts, all acts carried out by candidates are inherently
control acts, whose perlocutionary force is persuasion. For Garcia-Pastor (2007: 14-
15), the case is more complicated in that her approach to persuasion in presidential
debates is a ‘source-centred’ or illocutionary-based perspective that includes the
perlocutionary effects of candidates’ persuasive endeavours represented by the
audience’s responses. In other words, persuasion corresponds to a ‘source-centered’
symbolic action view, because the candidate is the source of the persuasive
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endeavours, and non-symbolic physical means of motivation, like physical force, are
excluded from his persuasive action. Therefore, such definition emphasizes the
illocutionary dimension of persuasion, since it amounts to persuasive attempts that
may or may not be successful, and contrasts with the view of this phenomenon as a
perlocutionary act (Austin, 1962: 109). This view entails that the speaker’s
persuasive action has to succeed, namely, the addressee has to be persuaded, for
persuasion to occur.

1.2.1. Persuasion through Politeness

Self-presentation, or impression management, theory suggests that a person

“presents an ‘edited’ version of their personality to a particular audience” (Bromley,
1993: 108) in order to promote an impression on that audience that the person’s
beliefs will be beneficial. It is argued that a person’s social image is thus constructed
by the manipulation of audience impressions (Schweiger and Adami, 1999: 355;
Bromley, 1993: 113). In this respect, the image with which a person impresses his
audience does not indicate a sort of reality, but instead a strategic exploitation of
verbal and nonverbal communication (Goffman, 1959: 243).
According to Hinck and Hinck (2002: 237), the audience expect candidates in
political debates to “have decent manners and not to resort to personal attacks on
any occasion”. Thus, debaters are expected to show best interactional etiquette as a
key to success in gaining the audience’s acceptance and advocacy, aiming at winning
votes in a given electoral campaign for presidency.
Following Fraser and Nolen’s (1981: 97) concept of persuasion in its relevance
to politeness, candidates generally employ different linguistic techniques to achieve
the objective of persuading and encouraging the audience to vote for them. In other
words, linguistic politeness strategies represent one type of persuasive patterns in
political debates, where politeness is adopted by candidates as a means to attain the
electorate persuasion. Therefore, since it is of critical importance for candidates to
attract audience's attention and to maintain social and emotional relationships with
them, they are expected to employ linguistic politeness strategies with much care in
5

their interactions. That is, the “persuader [candidate] needs various communicative
skills and communicative competence to get his/her intentions fulfilled” (Agyekum,
2004: 69).

1.2.2. Persuasion through Rudeness

Different authors, including Hinck and Hinck (2002); Dailey, Hinck, and
Hinck (2008); Garcia-Pastor (2007), and others, have suggested various scenarios
for what constitutes appropriate and desirable communication in presidential
debates. Many of such works find that negative attacking communications during
debates shrink and polarize the electorate. A more pragmatic (Dailey, Hinck, and
Hinck 2008) or functional approach (Benoit 1999) maintain that it is customary for
debaters to challenge policies, philosophies, and problems, but it is unusual for them
to attack focusing on the adversary’s persona shortcomings. Seiter and Gass (2010:
220) argue that such an approach “promotes civility and sees little utility in character
and competence attacks”. However, another approach, such as Geer’s (2006: 2-3),
is indifferent concerning civility which states that campaigns are not “feel-good
exercises,” but rather fierce, “rough and tumble” battles for control of government
that should expose candidates’ disconcerting qualities and records. Similarly, Seiter
and Gass (2010) introduce their work concerning this issue, suggesting that the
audience want to hear what interests them of facts including disclosing the
opponent’s ‘unpleasant deeds’. In this sense, exercising aggression may be seen as
a preferable phenomenon rather than performing a rather calm and more harmonic
interaction.
An electoral debate as a discursive genre is significantly characterized by the
attack to the adversary, in which role of linguistic politeness is usually reduced
compared to other communicative genres. According to Fernandez-Garcia (2014:
65), conflict and harsh verbal communication is to be expected in debates. Therefore,
as Garcia-Pastor (2008: 71) adds, deviation from politeness principle is expected to
predominate in contenders’ interventions primarily targeted at the counter candidate.
‘face-threatening acts’ (FTA’s) in these exchanges are commonly rule-governed
6

aggravation utilized by individuals to attain certain goals which is instantiated in and

through linguistic elements like disagreement and criticism acts, e.g. counter-claims
and challenges, rhetorical questions, ‘stance indicators’ denoting a specific attitude
towards the rival and his/her discourse, and, in general, strategies politicians exploit
to damage the image of the opponent. In this sense, Blas-Arroyo (2001: 40, 2003:
398) asserts that the face-aggravating act is, generally speaking, the unmarked
element of a debate, the prevailing norm.

2. Pragmatics of Politeness Strategies

2.1. Defining Politeness

As far as linguistic behaviour is concerned, Cruse (2006: 131) points out that
politeness is a matter of minimizing the negative effects of what one says on the
feelings of others and maximizing the positive effects. Held (2005) notes that
politeness may be understood as a specific type of linguistic structures, which
“expresses the speaker´s attitude and is thus not explicable by semantic, but rather
by pragmatic means” (p. 134).
Defining politeness is further complicated by the fact that not every utterance
that is seen as polite by laymen, is considered an example of politeness by linguists.
Although most people would label expressions such as thank you or have a nice day
or address terms sir and madam as polite, Watts (2003: 323) prefers to group them
under the term “politic behaviour”. This can be defined as “linguistic behaviour
geared towards maintaining the equilibrium of interpersonal relationships within the
social group” (Watts, 1992: 50). The politic behaviour is a standard behaviour
expected by society in certain situations. Its omission would be considered as
impolite, rather than neutral behaviour. Watts thus insists that utterances would be
interpreted as polite only if they go beyond politic behaviour and are “in excess of
what is minimally required” (Watts, 2003: 223).
In research on politeness, four main models can be observed: the “social norm”
model, the “conversational maxim” model, the “conversational contract” model and
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the “face-saving” model (Huang, 2007: 116). They are to various extent based on
the “Grice-Goffman paradigm” (Held, 2005: 131) and approach the area of
politeness with pragmatic means.

2.2. Social Norm View

According to Fraser (1990: 220), “the social norm view of politeness assumes
that each society has a particular set of social norms consisting of more or less
explicit rules that prescribe a certain behaviour, a state of affairs, or a way of thinking
in a context”. One example of these rules is the difference between a formal address
vous and an informal tu in some languages. According to Nwoye (1992: 312), within
the social norm view, politeness is “seen as arising from an awareness of one’s social
obligations to the other members of the group to which one owes primary
allegiance.”

2.3. Conversational Maxim View

According to Fraser (1990: 222), the conversational-maxim view depends
primarily on the work of Grice (1975). In an attempt to clarify how it is that
interlocutors can mean more than they ‘say’, Grice (1975: 44) points out that
“conversationalists are rational individuals who are, all other things being equal,
primarily interested in the efficient conveying of messages”. To this end, he
introduces the ‘Cooperative Principle’ (CP) which hypothesizes that an interlocutor
should “make [his] conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at
which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of talk exchange in which you
are engaged” (Grice, 1975:45).
Grice (1975: 47) describes the cases where the violation of one or more
maxims could result in additional meaning. In other words, as speakers prompt the
hearer’s to make an inference, ‘conversational implicature’ in Grice’s (1975: 47)
concept, points out that conversational implicature occurs when an inference arises
as a result from what speakers say. Conversational implicature is set off through the
speakers disobedience of these maxims, and is evoked by the addressee depending
8

on the presumption that the speaker is still adhering to the CP. Interlocutors who
seem disobedient to these maxims in conversation but still appear cooperative, have
recourse to further group of rules to communicate. These rules, according to Lakoff
(1973) are called “Rules of Politeness”. Leech (1983) introduces the term
“Politeness Principle” (PP) to allude to these rules. Lakoff’s rules of politeness and
Leech’s politeness principle together comprise the conversational maxim view of
politeness.

2.3.1. Lakoff’s Rules of Politeness

Differing from Grice, Lakoff (1973) distinctly extends the idea of grammatical
rule and its connected conception of “well-formedness” to pragmatics: “We should
like to have some kind of pragmatic rules, dictating whether an utterance is
pragmatically well-formed or not, and the extent to which it deviates if it does”
(Lakoff, 1973: 296). Broadening this to the area of politeness, she observes the form
of sentences; i.e., whether particular linguistic constituents are polite or not.
Lakoff (1975: 64) refers to politeness as a “device used in order to reduce
friction in personal interaction”. Lakoff (1973: 116) proposes two rules of Pragmatic
Competence: (i) Be Clear (essentially Grice’s maxims), and (ii) Be Polite.
Lakoff (1973: 298) introduces the following rules of politeness that are
designed “to make one’s address think well of one” and consequently, “to impart a
favourable feeling about” the content of the communication:
Rule 1: Don’t Impose (used when formal/Impersonal politeness is required),
Rule 2: Give Options (used when informal politeness is required,
Rule 3: Make ‘A’ Feel Good (used when intimate politeness is required) (ibid.).

2.3.2. Leech's Politeness Principle and Maxims of Interaction

‘Politeness Principle’ (PP), proposed by Leech (1983), is the other
conversational view to politeness with its six maxims. According to Leech (1983:
131), “politeness concerns a relationship between self and other” as ‘self’ commonly
refers to the speaker and the term ‘other’ applies to the hearer and/or a third party.
9

Moreover, Leech defines politeness saying that it is “minimizing the expression of

impolite beliefs” when these beliefs are disfavored or “at a cost of H” (ibid.). As
such, the PP targets the social end of “establishing and maintaining comity” (Leech,
1983: 104). Thomas (1995) argues that mitigating the tone of impolite beliefs by a
speaker could not indicate that the speaker does not carry those “impolite thoughts
or feelings” (1995: 160). Instead, complying with the PP, the speaker conveys those
beliefs implicitly.
Leech (1983) establishes a set of maxims to form the PP as stated below:

1. Tact maxim (in impositives and commissives): minimizes cost to other and
maximizes benefit to other
2. Generosity maxim (in impositives and commissives): minimizes benefit to self and
maximizes cost to self.
3. Approbation maxim (in expressives and assertives): minimizes dispraise of other
and maximize praise of other
4. Modesty maxim (in expressives and assertives): minimize praise of self and
maximizes dispraise of other
5. Agreement maxim (in assertives): minimizes disagreement between self and other
and maximizes agreement between self and other
6. Sympathy maxim (in assertives): minimizes antipathy between self and other and
maximizes sympathy between self and other (Leech 1983, 132).
2.4. Conversational Contract View
Fraser (1990) formulates the model of Conversational Contract (CC), which is
regarded as the most global view of politeness (Kasper, 2009: 161). In this model,
politeness is seen as “a dynamic concept, always open to adaptation and change”
during the conversational flow (Watts et al., 1992: 11). Basically, politeness means
“operating within the then-current terms and conditions of the CC” (ibid.: 12).
Participating in a conversation, an interactant “brings an understanding of some
initial set of rights and obligations that will determine, at least for preliminary stages,
what the participants can expect from the others” (Fraser, 1990: 232). Interactants’
social relations throughout the conversation can determine those rights. There is
always the likelihood for interlocutors to renegotiate the initial rights and obligations
10

on which interlocutors have agreed. These rights and obligations can describe the
interlocutors’ duty as a conversational contract.

2.5. Face-saving View

The currently most influential view to politeness is what Brown and Levinson
(1978, 1987) propose which is called the ‘face-saving view’ (Fraser 1990: 32).
Brown and Levinson combine three fundamental concepts as an initial point for their
approach: (a) the communication approach as rational action, (b) Grice’s (1975) CP
with its conversational maxims, and (c) Goffman’s (1967) concept of face, that is,
the “the public self-image that every member [of society] wants to claim for himself”
(p. 61). Accordingly, interactants are endowed with rationality, defined as “a
precisely definable mode of reasoning from ends to the means that will achieve those
ends” (Brown and Levinson, 1978: 63). According to the CP, interlocutors operate
on the basis that ordinary conversation is featured by “no deviation from rational
efficiency without a reason” (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 5). Concerns of politeness
and face are what provide reasons for those deviations.
Brown and Levinson (1987) point out that face has two aspects:
1. Positive face which is the positive consistent self-image or ‘personality’ claimed by
interactants (in other words, the desire to be approved of in certain respects).
2. Negative face which is the ‘basic claim to territorial personal preserves and rights
to non-distraction’ (in other words, the desire to be unimpeded by others) (p. 61).
2.5.1. Face and Face-threatening Acts
Brown and Levinson (1987: 65) observe that certain speech acts are inherently
face-threatening acts (FTA’s). Despite the fact that every individual aims to avoid
face-threatening acts in a conversation, in some cases, this is unattainable, since
certain acts are inherently face-threatening and performing their threat to either
hearer’s or speaker’s face is something unescapable. The usual FTA’s are acts
including requests, interruptions, sarcasms, disagreements, dislikes or objections
(Petríčková 2012: 12-13).
11

2.5.2. Variables for Assessing Weight of FTA’s

Brown and Levinson (1987: 74) propose three sociopragmatic dimensions that
can determine the weight of face threat of a certain speech act. These are:

1. Distance (D) represents the degree of closeness and intimacy between S and H. This
dimension suggests that the more intimate the relationship between S and H, the
more insignificant the consideration of their faces is.
2. Relative Power (P) between H and S is an asymmetric social variable. This
dimension represents the degree to which an interlocutor can impose his own
opinions and self-evaluation.
3. Absolute Ranking (R) refers to the ordering of impositions according to the degree
to which they impinge upon an interactant’s face wants in a particular culture and
situation (Brown and Levinson 1987: 74-78).

2.5.3. Superstrategies for Performing FTA’s

According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 68), an interaction participant needs
to be aware whether a certain act carries an FTA or not. If the interactant aims to
carry out the FTA, there are four possibilities including:

1. Bald on record aims do the FTA directly without any redressive action.
Redressive actions refer to actions that “counteract the potential face damage of
the FTA” (ibid.: 69).
2. Positive politeness aims to do the FTA with a redressive action that attends to
H’s positive face which indicates expressing solidarity (ibid.: 101).
3. Negative politeness aims to perform the FTA with a redressive action that meets
H’s negative face wants by not restricting his independence (ibid.: 129).
4. Off-record politeness is not explicitly mentioned, and so the hearer’s face is not
threatened through what is said (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 211).
. Thomas (1995: 169) points out that in cases where a speaker finds that a
speech act is too risky, then he can avoid the FTA altogether, as a fifth strategy (to
say nothing). Figure 1 illustrates these superstrategies:
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Figure 1: Possible superstrategies for doing FTA’s (Brown and Levinson 1987:69)
[The numbers 1-5refer to strategies to minimize threats from FTA’s]

2.6. Impoliteness
Impoliteness is a break from the hypothesized norms of a community of
practice. It is attributed to the speaker based on the assessments of his intention and
motivations (Mills, 2005: 122). When one’s social image is attacked, politeness
norms are breached resulting in impoliteness. According to Wibowo (2012: 7),
“constructing the definition and theory of impoliteness has proved rather
problematic because there was no established theoretical framework that could be
used properly”.
Ellen (2001: 45); Wojtkiewicz (2011: 99); Bax and Kádár (2012: 254) claim
that politeness and impoliteness are “two sides of the same coin”. The positive side
is politeness, and the negative one is impoliteness. In fact, impoliteness focuses on
intention and reception.

2.6.1. Lachenicht's Model of Aggravation

Lachenicht’s (1980: 617-19) model of aggravation strategies is a developed
framework based on Brown and Levinson's (1978) FTA’s. She proposes four
aggravation superstrategies and suggests that the speaker can choose among these
strategies on the basis of the weight of threat. These strategies include:

1. Off record: This strategy is of much the same kind as the politeness strategy, and is
designed to enable the insulter to meet an aggrieved challenge from the injured
person with an assertion of innocence.
13

2. Bald on record: which directly produces FTA’s and impositions (‘shut that door’,
‘do your work’, ‘don’t talk’, etc.) of the same kind as in the politeness strategy.
3. Positive aggravation: It is an aggravation strategy that is designed to show the
addressee that he is not approved of and will not receive cooperation.
4. Negative aggravation: is an aggravation strategy that is designed to impose on the
addressee and to interfere with his freedom of action (Lachenicht, 1980: 619).
2.6.2. Culpeper's model of impoliteness
Culpeper (1996: 356) finds that each of Brown and Levinson's “politeness
superstrategies has its opposite impoliteness superstrategy”. Unlike politeness
strategies that support and consider face wants, “impoliteness superstrategies are a
means of attacking face” (Culpeper, 1996, 356). Additionally, while Leech's (1983)
PP is oriented towards maximizing refined behaviours and minimizing impolite
ones, Culpeper's (1996) approach of impoliteness prescribes strategies that aim to
reduce polite expressions and enhance the impolite ones.
Mills (2003: 124-5) claims that “Culpeper (1996) takes Brown and Levinson's
four super-strategies … and inverts them to describe impoliteness”, where the
function of these strategies is inverted to damage the addressee’s face rather than
support it. These strategies are:
1. Bald on record impoliteness: is a strategy in which the FTA is performed in a
direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way in circumstances where face is not
irrelevant or minimized (Culpeper, 2005: 41).
2. Positive impoliteness: is a strategy that represents the use of strategies designed to
damage the addressee's positive face wants (ibid.).
3. Negative impoliteness: the use of strategies designed to damage the addressee's
negative face wants (ibid: 41-2).
4. Sarcasm or mock politeness: is a strategy in which the FTA is performed with the
use of politeness strategies that are obviously insincere, and thus remain surface
realizations … (ibid: 42).
14

5. Withhold politeness: a strategy that represents the absence of politeness work

where it would be expected.

3. Data Analysis

3.1. Model of Analysis

The model adopted comprises Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory as a
fundamental framework of politeness in combination with Lachenicht’s (1980)
model of rudeness and Culpeper’s (1996) model of impoliteness. Brown and
Levinson’s strategies are utilized in detecting and exploring face-mitigating acts
(FMA’s) performed by candidates. Culpeper’s and Lachenicht’s models provide
mixture of strategies that can be adopted as a conduct particularly in the
identification and categorization of face-aggravating acts (FAA’s). The significance
of this combination is to provide a complete collection of strategies that can deal
with belligerent or pacific and amicable types of interaction in which contenders
engage. Thus, the model mainly consists of two superstrategies; one for face-
mitigating acts and the other for face-aggravating acts. Each of these two
counteractive superstratgies encompasses two substartegies in terms of the two
aspects of face; hence positive and negative. The categorization of these strategies
is clarified as follows:
1. Face-mitigating strategies
I. Positive face-mitigating strategies
II. Negative face-mitigating strategies
2. Face-aggravating strategies
I. Positive face- aggravating strategies
II. Negative face- aggravating strategies

3.2. Data Analysis

Excerpt 1

Kerry: Yes, I certainly do. [Laughter] But let me just first…, Cheryl, the
President didn't find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so he's really turned
15

his campaign into a weapon of mass deception (Public Papers of the

Presidents of the United States, Book II, 2007: 2396).

Kerry starts with the utterance “I certainly do” where he manipulates it

humorously to reply the locutionary act of yes/no question, and purposefully leaves
the intended meaning of ‘request for replying’. Kerry uses this technique as positive
politeness strategy ‘joke’ to reinforce shared environment with the audience and thus
performs a positive FMA. The use of the hedging pattern let me here appears as a
negative FMA marker resembling the negative politeness strategy ‘minimize
imposition’. In this case, Kerry implicitly emphasizes that the audience’s power of
dis/allowance is highly respected. The following statement the president… in Iraq
shows a clear shift carried out by Kerry in making the adversary the ‘politeness
target’, whereas the audience are still the ‘speech target’ (i.e., the third person
politeness). By using the title of address the President, Kerry appears to avoid calling
opponent’s real name (Bush) and prefers to use the latter’s honorific title instead.
Kerry follows this negative politeness strategy ‘give deference’ to suggest his
respectfulness in his attempt to attend Bush’s desire to be called by his title rather
than his name.
What follows constitutes multiple positive FAA’s performed towards the
adversary. This statement presupposes that there is a prior common knowledge about
Bush’s responsibility to secure America from the threat of mass destruction weapons
being claimed to be possessed by Saddam Hussein. In the first reading, Kerry alludes
to that Bush did not succeed in what he was required to; hence, finding mass
destruction weapons (where Bush had committed himself to find these weapons as
he was the one who upheld the war, which was based on the pretext that Saddam
Hussein possessed such weapons). However, in the second reading, Kerry implicitly
states that there was no such weapons at all and Bush knew it, which presupposes
that the war was declared by Bush for purposes other than securing the country and
its people. It seems that the second reading is exactly what Kerry intends to convey
which is confirmed by what follows so he's really turned his campaign into a
16

weapon of mass deception. In this case, the word deception, which is the act of
deliberately making people believe something that is not true, confirms Kerry’s
intention in the second reading of the preceding statement. Consequently, Kerry
aims to attack Bush’s positive face by denying common ground with the use of the
positive FAA ‘express dislike for h and h's things’. Moreover, Kerry performs a
negative FAA towards his adversary through being contemptuous as he ridicules the
latter’s current campaigning title by calling it “weapons of mass deception”.

Excerpt 2

Bush: Robin, my opponent thought there was weapons there. That's why he called
him a grave threat. I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons,
and we've got an intelligence group together to figure out why (Public Papers

of the Presidents of the United States, Book II, 2007: 2397).

Excerpt 2 displays Bush’s rebuttal on a prior statement posed by Kerry after

the latter has denied his advocacy to carry on the war against Iraq. However, prior
to that, Bush uses the vocative form in calling Robin’s name, not as an attentive-
getting pattern but to assume and emphasize familiarity, using the positive FMA
strategy ‘use in-group language’ with the addressee, to enhance the latter's positive
face. In his rebuttal to Kerry’s prior claim, Bush’s response raises a negative
implication on his opponent’s persona by presuming that the latter has been
‘inconsistent’ in his behaviours. Thus, Bush implies that Kerry lacks the
administrative competence to lead the nation. This is a positive FAA performed by
using the face-aggravating strategy ‘show disinterest in h’s project’. At the same
time, Bush indicates to the audience that if the determination and declaring the war
were faulty, then Kerry, who thought, and ultimately supported, that there were any
mass destruction weapons in Iraq, would be regarded as a ‘fool’. This is another
positive FAA suggesting Kerry’s ‘unwise policies’.
The utterance that follows displays a linguistic technique carried out by Bush
to shift face-targeting from Kerry to the audience, where the audience represent the
17

primary addressee in both cases. This is obvious when Bush tries to assert his
knowledge and concern for the audience’s wants in that he is totally aware of
people’s disappointment and upset about the government’s ‘failure’. He, in this case,
performs a positive FMA strategy by claiming common interests with the audience.
Additionally, Bush performs a positive FMA towards Kerry as he uses the inclusive
pronoun we as an inclusive marker to claim his common point of view suggesting a
sort of agreement and co-operation with Democratics.

Excerpt 3

Obama: I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our
military works. You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer
ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and
bayonets—[laughter]—because the nature of our military has changed (October

22, 2012 Debate Transcript).

In this excerpt, the speech is directed to the audience who represent the primary
addressee, whereas the primary target of politeness is the adversary. Obama starts
with the use of the subjectivity marker hedging device ‘I like’, which is considered
to be more polite, because the subjectivity signals that Obama’s utterance should not
be understood as something universally true and definite, but rather as his personal
judgement, view or belief. As such, Obama wants to attenuate the potential FTA on
Romney’s negative face through using such a kind of hedging, therefore, a negative
FMA is performed. The same hedging pattern indicates another FMA towards the
audience’s negative face, since the audience are the secondary target of the act.
What follows shows Obama’s use of the modal adverb ‘maybe’ combined with
the perfective aspect (Maybe + HAVE + EN) which conveys Obama’s judgement
on the possibility of a past event hasn't spent enough time. Obama employs such a
pattern to express the subjective epistemic possibility which can be paraphrased as
‘it is possible that …’, with which Obama can mitigate the sense of imposition on
18

both the opponent and the audience. In other words, Obama uses such a pattern to
decrease the degree of certainty and definiteness through claiming his personal
opinion, which in turn minimizes the imposition on the hearer. Thus, two negative
FMA’s are encoded in the same act; one towards the opponent, and the other towards
the audiences (hence, multidirectional act).
In the next statement, Obama uses the personal deictic ‘you’ to refer to
Romney, which indicates shifting in the direction of the speech; that is, from the
audience to the opponent. Obama intends to remind Romney of what he has said
about the ‘Navy’ where there are fewer ships than they had in 1916. Commenting
on what Romney has claimed, Obama appears to make fun of his opponent’s view
of the ‘Navy’, as he says we also have fewer horses and bayonets. Obama, in this
utterance, alludes to that his opponent has incompetent philosophies and poor
policies to administer the nation. In this sense, Obama performs a positive FAA
towards his opponent, as he shows resentment and dislike towards Romney’s
policies and abilities. At the same time, such a sarcastic comment can provoke
Romney’s irritation to respond back. Therefore, Obama seems to burden his
opponent through controlling the conversation topic of Romney’s next turn of
speaking, where the latter would be distracted in defending himself or refuting
Obama’s claim, where such an act represents a negative FAA towards the adversary.
Again, Obama aims to use the 1st person plural pronoun our, as an inclusive
particle, to indicate a sort of solidarity, common ground, and shared interest with
both the audience and the opponent. Hence, a positive FMA is carried out by Obama
towards audience and Romney.

Excerpt 4

Romney: Well, let's come back and talk about the military … We're going to cut about
5 percent of the discretionary budget … By the way, number one I get rid of is
Obamacare… So I get rid of that one from day one (October 22, 2012

Debate Transcript).
19

In this excerpt, Romney uses the tentativizing adverb ‘well’ which is a hedging
device signaling to mitigating the possible FTA imposed on the audience’s negative
face. Romney’s use to this pattern shows his hesitation about what will be said.
Consequently, Romney carries out a negative FMA towards the audience. In
addition, Romney manipulates the pattern ‘let’s’ to convey a sense of solidarity
involving both the orator and the audience in performing the event uttered. This
pattern indicates Romney’s concern about the audience’s needs and appeals for them
to co-operate with him. This pattern can be explained in that the pseudo-imperative
‘let’s’ is normally used as an informal indicator of intimateness. As a result, Romney
employs a couple of positive FMA strategies in using such a pattern to claim
common ground with the audiences, where Romney employs the positive politeness
strategy ‘include both S and H in the activity’. In the first one, he claims solidarity
with the audience by utilizing the 1 st person plural pronoun as an inclusive marker.
In the second one, he uses the informal language, which corresponds to positive
strategy #4 ‘use in-group identity markers’.
Additionally, the whole statement let's come back and talk about the military
seems to be a sort of suggestion rather than order, since it shows that Romney would
not have come back to talk about the military unless he utters this statement.
Therefore, he performs a negative FMA towards the audience, since the suggestion
inherently indicates asking for a ‘permission’, where the speaker leaves the ultimate
determination to the audience.
The next utterance displays that Romney expresses a strong commitment
through the use of the semi-modal ‘be going to’, which he uses to the speaker directly
expressing his commitment to the occurrence of the event presented in the utterance;
that is, to cut about 5 percent of the discretionary budget. In this sense, Romney
employs a positive FMA towards the audience, as he commits himself in the promise
he makes for people. With the inclusive ‘we’, Romney expresses his attempt in
accomplishing the social goal of involving the audience in agreeing with him or co-
operating with him to perform the action uttered.
20

In uttering the adverbial by the way, Romney uses the positive politeness
strategy #3 ‘intensify interest to H’ hence, a positive FMA, which he utilizes to
intensify the interest of his own contribution, by making a good story, drawing the
audience as participants into the conversation. Using such a strategy, Romney aims
to show his interest in telling what will follow to the audience, as an indication to
shorten the social distance between himself and the audienc.
Next, Romney displays his intention to get rid of Obamacare (Obama’s health
care system), as he expresses a clear dislike and disagreement with Obama’s current
policies, where this disagreement demonstrates a positive FAA towards Obama.
Moreover, Romney stresses his disagreement through his strong intentionality ‘in
getting rid of Obamacare’ as he puts that action in his priorities as a main
prerequisite, planning to get rid of it ‘from the day one’. Therefore, he performs
consecutive positive FAA’s towards his opponent through attacking the latter’s
policies, suggesting that they are ‘useless’.

Excerpt 5

Obama: We are now reletting them [oil companies] so that we can actually make
a profit——
Romney: And production on Government lands——
Obama: And production is up.
Romney: ——is down.
Obama: I'll give you your time. Go ahead (October 22, 2012 Debate
Transcript).

This excerpt encompasses many short interrupted conversational sequences.

The turn of speaking here is officially allotted to Obama. However, there are several
times where Romney interrupts his antagonist’s flow of speech.
In his turn, Obama starts with the use of 1 st person plural pronoun ‘we’ as a
sign to show his willingness to be included as one member of the group of American
people to share him the action, following the positive politeness strategy ‘include
both S and H in the activity’. This inclusive particle constitutes a sort of a positive
FMA towards the audience since it displays that Obama claims a common point of
21

view with the audience, and thus involves them in the performance of the act or the
occurrence of the event uttered.
In the statement we can actually make a profit, again, Obama employs the
inclusive marker ‘we’ to indicate a politeness of solidarity showing the speaker’s
agreement, co-operation and attendance to the audience’s wants, hence a positive
FMA. In addition, Obama uses the pattern ‘we can’ to express encouragement,
optimism employing the positive politeness strategy ‘be optimistic’; and consultancy
for the audience to perform the act suggested (making a profit). This pattern actually
conveys Obama’s sense of encouragement by displaying a common point of view
with the audience. This pattern is combined with explicit and direct statements to
indicate Obama’s co-operative behaviour and is, thus, categorized as a positive FMA
towards the audience.
In the following statement, Obama is interrupted by Romney, who violates the
debate rule not preserving the candidate’s right to take his two minutes to speak
freely. Romney maximizes imposition on Obama by coercing him to quit speaking
and listen to his interrupting comment. Thus, Romney employs a negative FAA
towards his antagonist performing the face-aggravating strategy ‘hinder -
conventionally deny turn’. Furthermore, the same interrupting proposition shows the
perlocutionary act to control the topic choice, where the conjunction ‘and’, whose
intended meaning here is something like ‘what about …’, is used to direct the debate
topic towards the production on Government lands. This, again, impinges on
Obama’s right and freedom in choosing what to talk about, hence employing another
negative FAA towards the antagonist.
In the next turn, Obama interrupts back Romney’s speech, but nonetheless, as
mentioned above, this time of speaking turn is officially allotted to Obama by the
timekeeper. The statement displays Obama’s obedience to the maxim of relevance
in replying Romney’s interrupting comment. Thus, this reply indicates that Obama
avoids ignoring his antagonist’s comment, but instead, he takes it into consideration
as a respected opinion. As such, Obama performs a positive FMA towards Romney
22

utilizing the positive strategy #1 ‘notice, attend, to H (his interests, wants, needs,
goods).
In his next reply, Romney uses his clipped form locution is down to interrupt
Obama’s speech, where the illocutionary force of Romney’s statement is a direct
disagreement on Obama’s preceding statement. In this sense, Romney carries out a
double FAA towards Obama; a negative FAA of interrupting the opponent, and the
positive FAA in disagreeing with his claim.
The last utterance of this excerpt displays Obama’s use the positive politeness
in allowing Romney to go on in his speech. With the use of the pattern ‘I will’,
Obama commits to emphasize support for Romney in being cooperative with him,
offering a sort of an approval to the antagonist to comment. In this case, Obama
follows the positive strategy #15 ‘give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding,
cooperation), hence a positive FMA.
Furthermore, the same utterance demonstrates that Obama seems to avoid
maximizing imposition on Romney of restricting the latter’s freedom to speak. He,
instead, shows a sort of humility, and gives deference to his opponent. As a result,
Obama performs a couple of negative politeness strategies; ‘minimize imposition
weight’, and ‘give deference’; hence a double negative FMA towards Romney.
Finally, the imperative form Go ahead is used here by Obama as a bald-on-
record act, whose illocutionary force is an ‘offer’, since this act is perceived as being
in Romney’s interest. Thus, Obama performs a positive FMA towards Romney, as
he employs the positive strategy #10 ‘promise, offer’, where Obama shows his good
intention in satisfying Romney’s positive-face wants by using this strategy.

3.3. Results

The overall data analysis outcome of the frequency of occurrences of the

FAA’s and FMA’s in the six debates, clarifies the use of strategies performed by
candidates towards the adversary and the audiences in terms of quality.
The data analysis statistics illustrated in table 1 show that the majority of total
face-acts in the six debates are represented by FMA’s in percentage of 69% of all
23

acts, which implies that contenders prefer decorum to aggressive type of language
to persuade the audience.
Table 1 illustrates that the majority of total face-acts are those directed towards
the audience in percentage of 62% of the total occurrences of all acts. The majority
of the acts performed towards the opponent are those targeting the latter’s positive
face. The bulk of these acts is represented by the use FAA’s in 44% of 168 acts out
of 379 acts performed towards the opponent. In addition, 69% of all face-acts
represents the total number of FMA’s in these debates, where the majority of these
acts are performed towards the audience in a percentage of 81%.
As for FAA’s, the total percentage of the occurrences of these acts in the six
debates is 31%, where the majority of these acts which represent 83% are those
performed towards the opponent.
In terms of negative/positive face acts, the analysis shows that the total
percentage of the occurrence of these acts is 63% of all acts, where 63% of this
percentage is devoted to those performed towards the audience.

Table 1: Detailed View Showing the Number and Percentage of the Occurrences of
Strategies Carried Out During the Six Analyzed Presidential Debates

Target Opponent Audience Total

Act TYP. No. Ratio No. Ratio No. Ratio
POS. 61 16% 364 61% 425 44%
FMA
NEG. 70 18% 184 30% 254 26%
POS. 168 44% 27 5% 195 19%
FAA
NEG. 80 22% 24 4% 104 11%
Total 379 38% 599 62% 978 100%

Total POS. 229 37% 391 63% 620 63%

Total NEG. 150 42% 208 58% 358 37%

Total FMA 131 19% 548 81% 679 69%

Total FAA 248 83% 51 17% 299 31%

The antagonistic interaction nature between the contenders, as illustrated in

Figure 2, shows that the minimal percentage of the number of strategies used towards
24

the adversary is 16%, which represent positive FMA strategies. The maximum
percentage is for positive FAA’s in percentage of 44%.

Figure 2: Percentage of Strategies Performed Towards the Adversary

NEG. FAA POS. FMA

21% 16%

NEG. FMA
19%

POS. FAA
44%

The amicable nature of interaction with the audience, as illustrated in Figure

3, shows that the minimal percentage of the number of strategies used towards them
represent FMA strategies in 4% for both aspects of face equally. The maximum
percentage is for positive FMA’s in 61%.

Figure 3: Percentage of Strategies Performed Towards the Audiences

POS. FAA NEG. FAA

4% 4%

NEG. FMA
31%

POS. FMA
61%

3.4. Conclusions
Based on the data analysis, concluding remarks are summarized as follows:
1. The trilogic conversational system in presidential debates instigates the contenders
to employ bi- and multidirectional im/politeness strategies, i.e., the same speech act
can be directed to different targets simultaneously; the antagonist, the audience
and/or others. For instance, in the utterance We've lost 1.6 million jobs, the speaking
candidate aims to send his message to two directions at once; one to the audience in
25

building solidarity and claiming common interest with them using the 1st person
plural pronoun ‘we’, and the other with expressing his resentment and dislike
towards the adversary’s deed. Moreover, the same utterance shows
multifunctionality of the act, that is, the FMA in supporting the audience’s face, and
the FAA in attempting to damage the adversary’s.
2. The qualitative results show that positive face dominates the contenders’ interactions
because: a) the vast majority of FMA’s are those performed to build solidarity and
claim common interests with the audience as a means of persuasion; and b) the bulk
of FAA’s are employed to damage the adversary’s positive face through
disagreement, dislike and contradiction.
3. Concerning disagreement, two types are identified in contenders’ communications:
a) attacking disagreements; with which the speaker aims to damage the adversary’s
positive face, and b) defensive disagreements which constitute what is termed as
‘face-reviving acts’, with which the speaker attempts to revive his image after being
damaged by the adversary’s prior attack.

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‫‪29‬‬

‫الخـالصـــــة‬

‫تصاغ استراتيجيات التهذيب الكالمي من اجل الحفاظ على ماء الوجه االجتماعي للمتلقي حيث يسعى‬
‫الناس عادة الى تجنب ممارسةةةةةةل اهعال تهديد الوجه االجتماعي تجاي االارين والتي تجعله عادة يشةةةةةةعرون‬
‫رنبةةات المتلقي وان‬ ‫تعتبر اهعةةال تهةةديةةد الوجةةه االجتمةةاعي من االهعةةال الكالميةةل التي تاةةال‬ ‫بةةاالناعةةا‬
‫التر ير الناتن عن تلال االهعال بذلال هان تلال‬ ‫الغرض االسةاسةي من و ةس استراتيجيات التهذيب لو لتافي‬
‫التهديد للوجه االجتماعي من ناحيل اارى يمكن لتلال االستراتيجيات ان‬ ‫االستراتيجيات تسمى اهعال تافي‬
‫تنتن ا ار عكسةةةةيل هيما لو ت اسةةةةتادامها بتعمد لايادة حدة اهعال تهديد الوجه االجتماعي يبذلال ههي تسةةةةمى‬
‫برهعال مفاقمل تهديد الوجه االجتماعي) بدال عن تافيفيها بتعبير اار من الممكن اسةةةةةتادا اسةةةةةتراتيجيات‬
‫التهذيب بطريقل معاكسةةةل لايادة التهديد على الوجه االجتماعي للمتلقي بذلال تسةةةمى ممارسةةةات ايادة حدة‬
‫تهديد الوجه برهعال مفاقمل تهديد الوجه االجتماعي‬

‫هي المناظرات الرئاسيل يسعى المرشحون للظهور اما الجمهور بصورة ايجابيل كوسيلل لالقناع من‬
‫االل التواصةةةةةل اللفظي بتعبير اار يتوقس من المرشةةةةةحين ان يظهروا سةةةةةلوكا لفظيا مهذبا ألظهار كفاءة‬
‫تواصةةةليل اه ةةةل من اجل تعايا سةةةمعته من االل اسةةةتراتيجيات التهذيب اللغويل هي الوقت ذاته يسةةةعى‬
‫المتناظرون الى تشةويه سةةمعل الاصة للفوا بالمناهسةةل باسةةتادا تلال االسةةتراتيجيات بصةةورة عكسةةيل لايادة‬
‫حدة اهعال تهديد الوجه االجتماعي للاصة بذلال تشةكل المصةادر اللغويل وسيلل اساسيل للمتناظرين لتحقي‬
‫الداهه‬

‫الى بحث وتحليل الجوانب التداوليل الستراتيجيات التهذيب هي بعض‬ ‫الدراسل الحاليل تهد‬
‫المقتطفات الماتارة المراوذة من ست مناظرات رئاسيل هي الواليات المتحدة االميريكيل‬
‫الجامعة المستنصرية‬
‫كلية االداب‬
‫قسم اللغة االنكليزية‬
‫وادابها‬

‫دراسة تداولية ألسرتاتيجيات التأدب يف بعض‬

‫املاناراات الائاسية املختارة‬

‫الكلمات المفتاحية ‪( :‬مناظرات‪ ،‬التأدب‪ ،‬إستراتيجيات)‬

‫بحث قدم من قبل‬

‫االستاذ عباس لطفي حسين‬ ‫قيس محمد رحيم‬

‫نيسان ‪6102‬‬

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