A Pragma-stylistic Analysis of the Linguistic Strategies Manipulated in Presidential and Philosophical Debates

Abstract

This study is about the language used in debates and debating. It is, therefore, about the language of logic, reasoning and argumentation used to win a debate. It deals with the linguistic ‘weapons’ – so to speak – that one should adopt to win a debate. The main objective of this research is to know how to win a debate whether political/parliamentary and/or philosophical/ideological. The linguistic tools/techniques, (mainly pragmatic and partly stylistic) that may enable a debater/speaker to win a certain debate are reviewed in this study. These tools are evident in the two debates I have chosen as a corpus for the study, namely the third US presidential McCain-Obama debate held on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 9 p.m. EDT at Hofstra University in New York. This debate was on domestic and economic policy. The second debate that the study undertakes to analyze is the worldwide famous debate on the topic “Does God Exist?” between DR. Greg Bahnsen (1948-1995) the Calvinist Philosopher, a presuppositional apologist and debater, and DR. Stein (1941-1996) the leading atheist philosopher of his time. This debate is known as the “Great Debate”. It was held on Monday, February 11, 1985 at the university of California. This study is a research on what language can precisely do in dissuading or persuading a single opponent or, sometimes, a group of hearers to make them adopt a specific world view. How thought is expressed, changed, directed, redirected, formed or reformed through language is what this study is about. Therefore, the study investigates the relationship between pragmatics and logic. It defines the logical fallacies that a debater may fall into, and thus lose a proposition, and may lose, hence, a whole debate. Logic can be used and/or abused to win a debate.