Anger Management in the American Presidential Debates between Trump and Biden 2020: A Critical Discourse Analysis Study

Abstract

In the midst of the mutual aggressiveness between Trump and Biden in the presidential debates 2020; there might be attempts by the two candidates in reducing the force of their statements. Therefore, the main goal of the critical discourse analysis in this study is revolving around probing the rhetorical methods, specifically hedges, on them the two candidates rely to make their talk listener-friendly and coherent. A qualitative and quantitative analysis is employed by utilizing an eclectic model of taxonomies of hedges Salager-Meyer’s (1994) Hyland’s and Brown and Levinson(1987),and Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis (1995). The results of the analyses revealed that despite the differences between the two personalities in following the rhetorical style or not in speeches, each of them has a conservative base that achieves the highest percentage of votes for them because of their possession of the ability to manipulate words.