Argumentative Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the debates of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump

Abstract

This thesis applies Critical Discourse Analysis to the political discourse, power and ideology texts of the debates that took place between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the candidates for the American presidency elections of 2016/2017. Being concerned with CDA, a literature review on the studies of the different aspects of CDA published throughout the years is given in details. This research also studies the works done by different theorists and researchers, namely: Ruth Woodak, (1998,1990), Brown and Yule (1899), Sara Mills (1999), David Crystal (1998) and James Paul Gee (1995). The method of research used is mainly concerned with micro and macro analyses of the chosen words, phrases and language from the presidential debates of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump based on Fairclough’s (2012) and Van Dijk’s (2005) theories of Critical Discourse Analysis. This study, furthermore, examines the used language, power, and ideological words and phrases in order to reveal the real intentions of both candidate in the presidential debates.