Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS a study of interruptions in 2008 US presidential debates

Rationale for the study

Conversation is an “enterprise” which is characterized by turn-taking – the rule of the speaker and the listener’s changes Turn-taking means that “one person speaks, then the other responds” (Tannen, 1995, p 139) and it is a repetitive process (Levinson, 1983, p 296) in order for the conversation to run smoothly During the turn-taking process, participants are supposed to obey the one-at-a-time rule, i.e., one person should not talk while another person is already talking (Sacks, 1995, p

633) In other words, there should be no interruptions 1 in an ideal conversation, but in practice interrupting 2 still occurs

Interrupting is not a thing that people are supposed to do in conversation

But interrupting occurs in conversation

Sacks (1992, p 24) 3 Sometimes interrupting is proved to be able to function as manifestation of the interrupter’s support, cooperation and understanding in the conversation (Tannen, 1984, 1986; Goldberg, 1990) However, it is normally claimed to have association with dominance, power and control (Černý, 2010; Drass, 1986; James &

Clarks, 1993; Octigan & Niederman, 1975; O’ Donnel, 1990; Pschaid, 1993;

Tannen, 1991; Zimmerman & West, 1975) The interrupter and the interruptee are seen as “a malevolent aggressor” and “an innocent victim” respectively In intimate relationships, the accusation of interruption is particularly hurtful because

“interrupting carries a load of meta-messages that a partner does not care enough, does not listen, is not interested” (Tannen, 1991, p 94)

Consequently, in presidential debates where politicians aim to promote “their own opinions, their party and their personas – and also to defame the political enemy” (Luginbühl, 2007, p 1376), interruptions are expected to occur more

1 In this study, the word “interruptions” – the plural form – is used to refer to cases of interruption

2 The word “interrupting” and “interruption” are used interchangeably to refer to the act of interrupting as a concept, a linguistic phenomenon

3 as cited in O’Reilly (2006, p 550) frequently and ferociously than in daily conversation However, surprisingly studies on interruptions in political debates are still in short supply

This paper is, therefore, conducted to investigate the way two presidential nominees – the Democratic Party nominee Senator Barack Obama and the Republican nominee Senator John McCain − employ interruptions in the 2008 U.S presidential debates to win the hearts and minds of American voters.

Aims and objectives of the study

The study aims at making a conversation analysis of interruptions in the three rounds of the 2008 U.S presidential debates, and then giving some theoretical and pedagogical implications for utilizing interruptions in debates as well as other challenging and competitive speech exchanges To be more specific, to achieve these aims, the specific objectives of the study are:

Firstly, exploring patterns of interruptions employed by each candidate in the three debates;

Secondly, analyzing how interruptions are utilized by the two nominees to achieve their goals in the debates.

Research questions

From the above-mentioned objectives, the present paper seeks answers to the following research questions:

1) What patterns of interruptions are employed by each candidate?

2) What are the effects of each candidate’s interruption pattern?

Scope of the study

Due to the size and limitation of a preliminary research, the present paper only takes into consideration the three rounds of the presidential debates between Obama and McCain The vice-presidential debate between Vice-President Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin is not selected

Furthermore, non-verbal interruptions in the three debates are also excluded from the study Only verbal instances of interruptions are focused on so as to identify types of interruptions employed by each candidate and the effects of these interruptions in the debates.

Methods of the study

The database of this study is drawn from transcripts and videos of the debates, both are officially available from the Commission on Presidential Debates – the organizer of the presidential debates However, the investigation is mainly done on the basis of vocalized interrupting tokens

Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used in this paper with priorities given to the quantitative Specifically, instances of interruptions in the three debates are identified and calculated manually by the writer Also, a

Conversation Analysis transcription is conducted to detect non-fluencies in turn- taking Meanwhile, the functions and meanings of those interruptions are examined by a content analysis In addition, such methods as descriptive, analytic and comparative are also utilized to describe, analyze and compare the data in order to bring about the patterns of interruptions used by each candidate and their effects in the three debates.

Significance of the study

This study is expected to contribute humbly to the knowledge of those who want to improve their debating skills Hopefully, the information provided in this study will shed some light into and raise interest in the phenomenon of interruption in political debates which is usually underappreciated When employed appropriately, interruption can be an effective tactic to achieve the interrupter’s objectives.

Design of the study

The study is organized into three main parts and subdivisions as follows:

Part A (Introduction) deals with the rationale, objectives, research questions, scope, methodology, significance, and design of the study

Part B (Development) consists of three chapters:

Chapter 1 (Literature Review) provides a theoretical framework and a compendium of relevant existing studies on interruption in general and interruption in political settings and presidential debates in particular

Chapter 2 (Research Methodology) presents a detailed description of the study including restatement of research, appropriateness of research approach, context of the study, research instrument, data collection and analysis procedure

Chapter 3 (Data Analysis) supplies a description and analysis of classification and functions of interruptions

Part C (Conclusion) recapitulates the study, reveals several major findings, suggests several theoretical and pedagogical implications, points out the limitations, and proposes some suggestions for further studies.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Conservation Analysis

Conservation analysis (henceforth, CA) is originally to be found on the work of two American originators: Goffman and Garfinkel (Schegloff, 2003a, as cited in Heritage, 1998, p 103), and then developed by Sacks in association with Schegloff and Jefferson (Heritage, 2008, p 301) It is “a rigorously empirical approach which avoids premature theory construction” (Levinson, 1983, p 286) and “one of the key methodological approaches” to the study of verbal interaction (Wooffitt, 2005, p 1)

By far, CA has become “the dominant approach to the study of human social interaction across the disciplines of Sociology, Linguistics and Communication”

At its core, CA is “a set of methods for working with audio and video recordings of talk and social interactions” (Sidnell, 2010, p 20) The methods are essentially inductive The primary data for research are analyzed with assistance of transcripts to provide a detailed characterization of “messiness” of everyday interaction, concentrating on speech production and turn-taking organization

…the strength of the CA position is that the procedures employed have already proved themselves capable of yielding by far the most substantial insights that have yet been gained into the organization of conversation

1.1.2 Turns, turn-constructional units, and turn-taking

Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) assert that all conversation is organized into turns A turn can consist of single words, phrases, clauses or sentences and can be defined as “a shift in the direction of the speaking “flow” which is characteristic of normal conversation (in opposition to, e.g., the conversational monologue)” (Mey, 1993, p 139) It includes “the temporal duration” of both an utterance and the right (and obligation) to speak allocated to a particular speaker (Zimmerman & West, 1975, p 107) In other words, whenever an interlocutor begins to speak, he/she takes a turn – if his/her speaking is able to be finished without being interrupted, the turn ends and either the floor – the right to speak – is passed to another interlocutor, or the conservation finishes

A turn itself is comprised of at least one turn-constructional unit (hereafter abbreviated to TCU) which is described as the smallest complete unit that could fully constitute a turn (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson, 1974, p 720) Also, “A simplest systematics for the turn-taking organization of conversation” can be described in terms of two components, as follows:

(i) Turn-constructional component: various unit-types such as sentential, clausal, phrasal, and lexical constructions with which a speaker may set out to construct a turn

(ii) Turn-allocational component which deals with the regulation and negotiation of turn allocation, at the end of each TCU, for the next such unit Next turn is allocated either by current speaker selecting a next speaker or the next speaker self-selecting

Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson (1978, p 7) This definition of TCUs relies largely on two kinds of criteria: syntactic structure, and projectability which is the capability of the respective unit to constitute a possible complete turn, ending in a transition-relevance place, or TRP – a possible change-of-turn point

A TCU can only be considered as complete when all participants recognize it as so (Coulhard & Coulhard, 1985, p 62) When a TCU is complete but another is not yet initiated, there is a potential TRP, which can be exploited by “current speaker” – the speaker holding the floor – selecting a next speaker, or by the next speaker self-selecting The initiation and the completion of a TRP can

“syntactically, semantically and intonationally be projected and predicted” (K T T

As to TRPs, there are “ natural breaks ” occurring in every conversation: a speaker pauses to take a breath and/or organize his/her thoughts, or declares his/her contribution to be finished All the points in the conversation are places where a relay of the right to speak to the next speaker – a natural “transition” – may occur

However, the non-floor-holders in a conversational situation are not “mere silent bystanders” Their contribution to the conversation is an important part of the

“ traffic management ” – a metaphor used by Mey (1993, p 140) to describe techniques that help keep the flow of conversation going and avoid conversational

“ accidents ” or conversational “ traffic jams ”, the situations in which the participants feel themselves “gridlocked in sterile verbal exercise” Depending on cultures and language practices, “back-channel signals” or simply “backchannels” may differ and vary – from short utterances (“I see”, “Right”, “Yeah”, and so on) that show the other interlocutor’s support, to direct intervention in the conversation as taking the floor If the intervention happens at a point that is not TRP (i.e., when the current interlocutor is in the middle of his/her talk and there is no signal of completion), then it is called “interruption” (Mey, 1993, p 218)

Yule (1997), however, argues that the most widely used analytic approach to conversation structure is based on an analogy with the workings of a market economy In this market, the right to speak or the floor is a “scare commodity”, and having control of this commodity at any time is called a turn In addition, attempt to get control is called turn-taking, which operates in accordance with “a local management system”, a set of conventions which are known by members of a social group for getting turns, keeping them, or giving away

At the present time, there are two forms of CA being practiced (Heritage,

1998, p 104) The first one is basic CA, which studies conversation as an institution Anchored and epitomized by the entire research output of Sacks, Schegloff, Jefferson, and others, basic CA focuses on ordinary conversation which is not confined to specialized settings or to the execution of particular tasks; and is used as a resource to understand the work of social institutions, such as the police, law, education, medicine, and mass media

The second form of CA is institutional CA which emerged in the late 1970s

Institutional CA involves a shift of perspective, and is erected on the findings of basic CA to investigate the operation of social institutions in talk The findings of this form tend to be less permanent than those of basic CA They are “historically contingent” and “subject” to processes of social change due to factors impacting change in society, such as culture, social ideology, power, economic forces, intellectual innovations

An institutional talk consists of three basic elements, as follows:

(i) Specific goals orientations tied to institution-relevant identities;

(ii) Special constraints on what is treated as allowable contribution to the business at hand;

(iii) Inferential frameworks and procedures which are particular to specific institutional contexts

(Drew & Heritage, 1992; as cited in Heritage, 1998, p 106) Unlike basic CA, special turn-taking procedures, being “systematically different” from conversation, are involved in the organization of institutional talk

Special turn-taking procedures fall into three broad groups:

(i) Turn-type pre-allocation which is characteristic of courtrooms and news interviews The most pervasive form of turn-type pre-allocation involves the restriction of one party (normally not the representative of the institution) to answering questions

(ii) Mediated turn allocation procedures characteristic of business and other forms of chaired meetings In these systems, fewer restrictions on the content and type of contributions can be made, but at the end of each contribution the mediator of the proceedings allocates the next turn

(iii) Systems that involve combination of both processes common in mediation and some forms of counselling

Interruption

1.2.1 Definitions of interruption 1.2.1.1 Definitions of interruption by lexicographers

According to Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 3rd edition software, to interrupt is “to stop a person from speaking for a short period by something you say or do” Likewise, in Longman Dictionary of American English, the verb “interrupt” is defined as to “stop someone from continuing what they are saying or doing by suddenly saying or doing something” (2011, p 542) Similarly, in Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, interruption is described as the interjection of

“remarks or questions into another’s discourse” (Mifflin, 1995, p 548)

Although these definitions may be regarded as generic and simplistic, they are still not far from linguists’ definitions and serve as a basis for understanding the technical linguistic definitions of interruption

1.2.1.2 Definitions of interruptions by linguists

There is not a consensus about the definition of interruption, though interruption has drawn researchers’ attention for the past few decades Still many definitions of interruptions are being seen as inconsistent and “empirically tenuous”

(Drummond, 1989, p 150); or used in a “unanimous way” (Martínez, 2000, p 108)

Some researchers use interruption as a synonym of simultaneous speech, or overlap (Meltzer, Morris & Hayes, 1971, Uljin & Li, 1995); others see it as opposed to overlap (Zimmerman & West, 1975; Bennet, 1981)

This study, therefore, attempts to present a summary of definitions of interruption which is critically accepted and widely applied by linguists Linguistic definitions of interruption can be categorized according to three criteria: the morphosyntactic criterion, the social-contextual criterion, and the combination of two criteria

(1) By morphosyntactic criterion, interruption is defined as “a violation of a current speaker’s right to a complete a turn” (Zimmerman & West, 1975, p

123) Specifically, an interruption “penetrates the boundaries of a unit-type prior to the last lexical constituent that could define a possible terminal boundary of a unit type” (West & Zimmerman, 1983, p 104) In other words, interruption is regarded as a type of turn transition which took place before a TRP An interruption, therefore, is to be distinguished from an overlap as it intrudes more deeply into the internal structure of a speaker’s utterance than an overlap, i.e., “candid interruptions are incursions initiated more than two syllables away from the initial or terminal boundary of a unit-type” (ibid.)

An idealized schema for interruption as a sub-class of overlap is provided by Drummond (1989, p 150), as shown in Figure 1

Figure 1: Idealized schema for interruptions as a sub-class of overlap

As we can see from the model, speaker A is producing an utterance (time 1) when speaker B interrupts by overlapping with his/her own utterance (time

2) The floor is subsequently relinquished by speaker A to speaker B (time 3), who completes the turn alone (time 4)

(2) By social-contextual criteria, Murray (1985, p 31) asserts that interruption is a violation of the “completion right”, the right for the current speaker to complete his/her turn This right is based not only on the turn-taking system but also on social status and context It is related to factors such as the length of a speaker’s speaking, the frequency of his talk, the numbers of “points” made in a speaking turn, and the special rights of some speakers to speak about some topics As these factors vary greatly from culture to culture, Murray’s definition allows gender and cultural variation in the way interruptions are made

(3) By the two criteria combined, Gibson (2005, p 317) defines interruption on the basis of Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson’s theory of turn-taking organizations in conversation; and social and contextual variations He admits that someone is considered to be interrupting when he/she begins speaking while the prior interlocutor is still in the midst of a TCU However, he adopts this definition with the additional requirement that the initial (prior) speaker is actually prevented from completing that TCU TCU is interpreted as speech that did not “project itself into the future”, in other words, a TCU should not make people anticipate a “yet-unspoken portion” (ibid.)

Anticipation would arise not only because an utterance was syntactically incomplete but because it was regarded as incomplete in certain contexts or in certain societies

In summary, Gibson’s definition not only provides a structural basis for defining interruption but also introduces contextual and social variations into the definition, which makes it superior to either Murray’s definition or West &

The classification of interruption is an issue of much controversy and once caused academic cut-and-thrust (see Bull & Mayer, 1988; Beattie, 1989a; Bull &

Mayer, 1989; Beattie, 1989b) because interruption is “extremely difficult to define let alone classify” (Beattie, 1989, p 234) Opinions also differ as regards the categorization of interruption This study deals with four classifications of interruption which are most widely accepted

The first two categorization schemes, respectively devised by Ferguson and Roger, Bull & Smith , classify interruption as deviations from speaker-switch The last two items, formulated by Goldberg and Kennedy & Camden , respectively, focus on the meanings and purposes of interruption

In her study, Ferguson (1977, p 296) uses four categories of interruption, each of which may be contrasted with what she calls a perfect speaker-switch A speaker-switch occurs when one interlocutor in a conversation finishes speaking and another begins A speaker-switch is perfect when a change in speaker is effected in such a way that:

(i) There is no simultaneous speech – the situations when two or more participants talk at once

(ii) The first speaker’s utterance appears to be complete in every way: semantically, syntactically, phonologically, both segmentally and supra- segmentally

An example of each of the four types of speaker-switch non-fluency is given below In all examples, “A” refers to the main interlocutor in every conversation, and “B” refers to one of her partners All simultaneous speech is italicized, and the italicization of simultaneous speech designates the extent of simultaneous speech in each speaker’s utterance or interjection Speech enclosed in parentheses is produced by the person who is not currently holding the floor; and may or may not involve simultaneous speech

(1) Simple interruptions: involve both simultaneous speech and a break in continuity in the first speaker’s utterance; the interrupter takes the floor

(A)…and this bit about him being bankrupt and having no money I just don’t see how it’s possible because–

(ibid., p 296) Ferguson’s simple interruptions appear to resemble Mishler & Waxler’s

(2) Overlaps: In this type of speaker-switch non-fluency, simultaneous speech is present and the interrupter takes the floor However, there is no apparent break in continuity in the first speaker’s utterance

(A) …I expect you would like to go with him

(Yes) (Yes) (B) Well, I’d prefer it, yeah – but then he would want me to go to a Ranger’s football match…

In her study, Ferguson admits that Overlaps correspond to Mishler & Waxler

(3) Butting-in interruptions: This non-fluency type involves an interruption or break in verbal continuity in one speaker’s output In this case, simultaneous speech is present, but the interrupter just breaks off before completing her utterance instead of taking the floor

(I think I –) (A) I don’t know, I’ve got mixed feelings, I think it would be nice to have a baby…

(4) Silent interruptions: In this case, the first speaker’s utterance is incomplete (finishing, and, um…), but no simultaneous speech is present

(Yes) (A) It wasn’t in ours actually it was a bloke, and um…

(B) But anybody who’s a bit lazy I suppose, is it, that he used to picks on?

(ibid., p 297) Also, such short utterances like uhm, yeah, that’s true, exactly, goodness, etc are interjectory remarks, and are not treated as instances of speaker-switching, either perfect or non-fluent because their function seems to be “very opposite of effecting a change in speaker, since they appear to ensure that the speaker who is holding the floor continues to do so” (ibid., p 296).

Beattie (1982) follows Ferguson’s typology of interruption and figures it as follows:

Simulaneous speech present? Simultaneous speech present?

Figure 2: Classification of types of interruptions (Beattie, 1982, p 100)

Interruption and dominance and power

1.3.1 Concept of dominance and power

As dominance is one of the most important dimensions in social interactions (Wiggins, 1979), psychologists have studied for decades to define dominance and find indications of it Dominance can be viewed as a personal characteristic, a person’s status within a group or the power they have within it (Mast, 2002, p 421)

In other words, dominance, power and status can be used interchangeably

However, Dunbar & Burgoon (2005, p 208) suggest that power and dominance are not the same Power is the “capacity to produce intended effects, and in particular, the ability to influence the behavior of another person” (ibid.) In contrast to power, which may be latent, the term “dominance” is used to refer to behaviors that are necessarily manifest It refers to “context-and relationship- dependent interaction patterns in which one actor’s assertion of control is met by acquiescence from another” (Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005, p 208) Although dominance may be viewed as a personality feature, in the context of communication, it is a dynamic state that reflects a combination of individual temperament and situational traits that demand, release, or encourage dominant behavior Unlike domineeringness, which refers to individual attempts to control the interaction, dominance refers to the acceptance of the control attempts by the interactional partner – that is, it is defined by the sequence of “one-up” and “one- down” acts between two parties Dominance is thus both behavioral and relational

Burgoon, Johnson & Koch (1998, p 315) further define interpersonal dominance as

“a relational, behavioral, and interaction state that reflects the actual achievement of influence or control over another via communicative actions”

1.3.2 Interruption and dominance and power

Interruption has been viewed as an indicator of dominance and power by many researchers Kollock, Blumstein & Schwartz (1985, pp 40-41) assert that

“interruptions are clearly a sign of conservational dominance … interruptions as attempts at conversational control Successful interruptions, then, become a more sensitive measure of actual dominance” Therefore, interruptions are also a function of power position The more powerful partner tends to play a more dominant role within conversation

Likewise, Drass (1986, pp 297-298) considers overlaps and interruptions as

“attempts” or “strategies to exercise dominance and control” in conversation

Octigan and Niederman (1975, p 52) also observe that interruption is taken as a violation and a sign of conversational dominance Share the same view, Karakowsky, McBey & Miller (2004, p 431) view interruptions as “one verbal mechanism of power and dominance” because they “constitute a violation of the current speaker’s right to speak and control the subject of conversation” Also, interruptions can be seen as communicative acts that enact dominance for two reasons:

(i) An interruption acts to reduce another’s role as communicator by reducing another speaker’s turn

(ii) Interruptions can also be used to control the topic of the conversation

When the interrupter enacts a topic change this also signals an additional type of dominance over interaction partners In this sense, interruptions can be viewed as one important indicator of enacted dominance

In contrast with the previous view, Kennedy and Camden (1983, p 55) argue that interruptions does not always function as dominance behaviors In their study, interruptions appear to function as “healthy functional communicative acts” almost half of the time Following Kennedy and Camden, James and Clarke (1993, p 236) surveys the ways in which “interruptions” can and do perform useful, healthy functions in conversation; and surveys evidence suggesting that the majority of interruptions in casual conversation may not be dominant-related Likewise, Černý

(2010, p 3) asserts that interruptions are made with the intent of disrupting the topic, claiming the floor of the interaction or manifesting cooperation and support.

Debates and televised presidential debates

According to Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, 4 a debate is “a formal discussion of an issue at a public meeting or in a parliament” In a debate, two or more speakers express opposing views and then there is often a vote on the issue

Similarly, in the website of the International Debate Education Association 5 , a debate is defined as “a formal contest of argumentation between two teams or individuals” and can work as “an essential tool for developing and maintaining democracy and open societies”

1.4.2 Concept of televised presidential debates

The idea of two-major party presidential candidates meeting face-to-face on live television is only about fifty years old Kennedy and Nixon were the first to formally debate for a national audience in 1960 Presidential debates are sometimes criticized to have rarely, if ever, mattered the outcome of the election (Sides, 2012) 6 ; or “don’t very often convert partisans on one side to another” (Jamieson & Birdsell,

However, televised presidential debates in the U.S still rank among the

“most watched” and “most talked about” event of a campaign (Hellweg, Pfau &

Brydon, 1992, p 101) According to Watts (2002, p 27), debates offer cannot-find- anywhere-else information which plays “a major role” in voters’ decisions

Specifically, he lists some reasons to this consideration, as follows:

(i) Debates show more of the candidates’ knowledge of the issues than do other campaign elements, provide a better sense of how well the candidates understand the issues than do stump speeches or campaign ads

(ii) Debates show the candidates’ capacity for quick thinking and their ability to handle pressure – important character traits in the eyes of many voters

4 http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/debate_1?qate Retrieved on July 1 st ,

5 http://idebate.org/about/debate/what

6 http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2012/ten_miles_square/do_presidential_ debates_really039413.php?page=all

(iii) Debates reveal candidates’ characters, personalities and styles, traits rarely exposed in more controlled environment

(iv) Debates are also valued for their fairness, primarily because they give all candidates an equal chance to be heard

Related studies

1.5.1 Studies on interruption in political settings

Beattie (1982) concentrates on deviations from the turn-taking rules – the interruptions – in Thatcher’s and Callaghan’s political interviews, shown on British television in April 1979; and employs Ferguson’s typology of interruptions to compare and contrast the interview style of two Britain’s leading politicians

Another study on interruptions in political interviews is conducted by Bull &

Mayer (1988) Eight televised interviews are selected from four interviewers who each interview Thatcher (the Prime Minister) and Kinnock (the Leader of the Opposition) The study uses Roger, Bull & Smith’s Interruption Coding System and gives contrary results to what might have been expected from the work of Beattie (1982)

In his B.A thesis, Kien (2015) also investigates interruptions in three rounds of the 2012 presidential debates between Obama and Romney The study reveals that Obama is the more adroit and flexible user of interruption, thus comes out as the winner of the three debates

1.5.2 Studies on the 2008 U.S presidential debates

Basta and Ewald (2013) conduct a study which analyzes the rhetorical strategies employed by candidate Obama and McCain in the third presidential debate of 2008 The study pays attention to candidates’ use of acclaims, attacks and defenses, as defined by functional theory

Another research is a lexical analysis of 2008 U.S presidential and vice- presidential debates (with the subjects being Obama vs McCain and Biden vs

Palin) conducted by Krywinski in 2008 The analysis explores the structure of speech, as characterized by the use of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and noun phrases

In her MA thesis, Han (2009) examines interactional dimensions of the 2008 U.S presidential debates on the basis of the conversation analytic concepts of sequence organization and turn management.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Restatement of research questions

With a view to making a conversation analysis of interruptions in the three rounds of the 2008 U.S presidential debates between Obama and McCain, the questions that the study investigates are as follow:

1) What patterns of interruptions are employed by each candidate?

2) What are the effects of each candidate’s interruption pattern?

Appropriateness of research approach

CA is a set of methods which work with audio and video recording of talk and social interactions (Sidnell, 2010, p 20) in order to provide a detailed characterization of “messiness” of everyday interaction, focusing on speech production and turn-taking organization So far, CA has become “one of the key methodological approaches” (Wooffitt, 2005, p 1) or “the dominant approach to the study of human social interaction across the disciplines of Sociology, Linguistics and Communication” (Stivers & Sidnell, 2013, p 1) For these reasons, a conversation analysis research design fits the purpose of the study.

Context of the study

2.3.1 Setting of the study 2.3.1.1 The 2008 U.S presidential debates

The first presidential debate was originally planned to focus on foreign policy and national security Due to the 2008 financial crisis, a portion of the debate concentrated on economic issues In the debate, the two nominees were questioned in turn with two-minute responses, followed by five minutes of open discussion for each question between the moderator and the two candidates According to the Commission on Presidential Debates, the 90-minute debate between the candidates standing at podiums was followed by 52.4 million viewers 7

7 data provided by Nielson Media Research, as cited at http://debates.org/index.php?page 08-debates

The second debate contained questions of all topics raised from uncommitted voters who were identified by the Gallup Organization and the moderator’s discretion to include questions submitted online The candidates were questioned in turn with two-minute responses, followed by one-minute open discussion for each question The 90-minute town hall meeting debate was viewed by 63 million people 8

The third debate focused on domestic and economic policies while the candidates were seated at table with the moderator, and it was viewed by 56.5 million people (ibid.) The candidates were questioned in turn with two-minute responses followed by five minutes of open discussion for each question

In 2008 U.S presidential election, Obama was the presidential candidate representing the Democratic Party and his rival was the Republican presidential nominee senator McCain

Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 and to the U.S Senate in 2004 In 2007, he announced his candidacy for President of the U.S., and then was elected the 44 th President, and also the first African-American President of the United States on November 4, 2008 After being re-elected in 2012, President Obama is currently serving his second and final term, which will end in January 2017

Obama’s opponent, McCain has a 22-year military career as a pilot and officer in the Navy After leaving the Navy in 1981, he was elected to the Congress in 1982 and then was elected as U.S senator from Arizona in 1986 In 2000, he ran for the Republican presidential nomination, but was defeated by George W Bush

After Bush was reelected in 2004, McCain ran again for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008

8 data provided by Nielson Media Research, as cited at http://debates.org/index.php?page 08-debates

2.3.1.3 Effects of the three debates

According to three polls conducted online after each debate by Knowledge Networks among three national random samples of “uncommitted debate watchers”

– either undecided about who to vote for or who could still change their mind, Obama defeated McCain in the first two presidential debates and was also the winner of the third After the first debate, it appears that Obama benefited the most

Among a random sample of 483 9 uncommitted voters watching the first debate, 39% said Obama won the debate, 24% said McCain won, 37% said thought it was a tie In addition, 46% said that their image of Obama changed for the better as a result of the debate Meanwhile, McCain saw less improvement in his image (32% thought that they have improved their image of McCain as a result of the debate)

Although the second debate was thought to favour McCain, only 26% of

516 10 uncommitted voters said McCain won, 40% said Obama was the winner of the debate, and another 34% thought it was a tie Also, McCain’s image had not changed much for the better Only 32% of the uncommitted voters said that their image of McCain changed for the better as a result of the debate Meanwhile, the percentage of Obama was still higher, at 42%

The last poll 11 really showed Obama’s triumphant victory over McCain 53% of 638 uncommitted debate watchers named Obama the winner of the third and last debate as well, and by an even wider margin Whereas only 22% said McCain won, and another 25% thought it was a tie Additionally, Obama saw much more improvement in his image than that of McCain (46% in comparison with 30%)

The investigation is mainly done on the basis of vocalized interrupting tokens In total, there are 146 cases of verbal interruptions in the three debates made by Obama and McCain, either towards each other or towards the moderators

9 Data provided by Knowledge Networks, as cited at http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/2008Debate1.pdf

10 Data provided by Knowledge Networks, as cited at http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/2008Debate2.pdf

11 Data provided by Knowledge Networks, as cited at http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/2008Debate3.pdf

Research instrument

Instances of speaker-switch non-fluency in the three debates are identified, and transcribed according to transcribing conventions described by Zimmerman &

West (1975) The conventions are presented in Appendix 1 and transcribing results of non-fluencies in three debates are provided in Appendices 2, 3 and 4 respectively.

Data collection and analysis procedure

The database is drawn from transcripts and videos of the debates, both are officially available from the Commission on Presidential Debates Later, Zimmerman & West (1975)’s transcribing conventions are employed to identify and transcribe all instances of speaker-switch non-fluency Next, these non-fluencies in speaker switches are detected and classified according to Ferguson’s abovementioned syntactic-driven typology The non-fluencies can be of four categories: (i) Simple interruptions, (ii) Overlaps, (iii) Butting-in interruptions, and (iv) Silent interruptions

Besides, a content analysis of the non-fluencies is conducted by utilizing

Kennedy & Camden’s coding scheme , in which six categories of interruption are:

(i) Clarification, (ii) Agreement, (iii) Disagreement, (iv) Tangentialization, (v)

Subject change, and (vi) Other Among them, Clarification and Agreement are considered “ cooperative ” interruptions which intend to “help the speaker by coordinating on the process and/or content of the ongoing conversation”

Disagreement, Tangentialization and Subject change are also called “ intrusive ” interruptions because they “pose threats to the current speaker’s territory by disrupting the process and/or content of the ongoing conversation” (Li, 2001, pp

Finally, such methods like descriptive, analytic and comparative are also used to bring about the patterns of interruptions and their effects in the debates.

DATA ANALYSIS

Simple interruptions

Example 1: (Fragment 21, Appendix 2, first debate)

1 O: And Senator McCain, nobody's talking about defeat in Iraq, but, you

2 know, I have to say that we are having enormous problems in

3 Afghanistan because of that decision And it is not true that you have

4 consistently been concerned about what happened in Afghanistan I

5 mean, at (x) at one point, while you were focused on Iraq, you said,

6 well, we can muddle through Afghanistan You don't muddle through

7 the central front on terror And you don't muddle through going after

8 Bin Laden You don't muddle through stamping out the Taliban I

9 think that is something that we have to take seriously And when I'm

12 →1 MC: [You know] you might (x) you might think that with that kind of

13 concern, that Senator Obama would have gone to Afghanistan

14 particularly given his responsibilities as the subcommittee chairman

In this exchange, the non-fluency [arrow (1)] is different from ideal speaker- switch because it involves both simultaneous speech made by the moderator and McCain (the part of the utterance contained in square brackets), and a break in continuity in the first speaker’s (the moderator’s) utterance; the initiator of the simultaneous speech (McCain) takes the floor Therefore, this non-fluency belongs to Simple interruption s category.

Overlaps

Example 2: (Fragment 14, Appendix 2, first debate)

1 MC: And if there's anybody here who thinks there aren't agencies of

2 government where spending can be cut and their budget slashes (,)

3 they have not spent // [a lot of time in Washington.]

4→1 O: [No, but (x) but] I just have to make this point Jim John,

5 it's been your president, who you said you agreed with 90 percent of

6 the time, who presided over this increase in spending, this orgy of

Example 3: (Fragment 23, Appendix 4, third debate)

1 M: Even someone who had a history of being abortion rights //

3→1 MC: [I would (x) I would] (x) I would consider anyone in their

4 qualifications I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v

5 Wade (#) that would be a part of those qualifications But I certainly

6 would not impose any litmus test

In these cases, simultaneous speech is present (in square brackets) and the initiators of simultaneous speech (Obama in example 2 and McCain in example 3) gain the floor However, in contrast to the simple interruption, there is no apparent break in continuity in the first speakers’ (McCain’s in example 2 and moderator’s in example 3) utterances and their utterances appear to be completed in every way As a result, these excerpts can be classified as Overlaps

Butting-in interruptions

Example 4: (Fragment 21, Appendix 4, third debate)

1 O: It is (x) it is not And (x) and I //[just described it] I (x) I //[just ( )]

2→1 MC: [No, you stated it]

4 O: I (x) I just described what my plan is And I’m happy to talk to you,

5 Joe, too, if you’re out there Here’s your fine: zero

6 You won’t pay// [a fine] because (x) 7→3 MC: [Zero (?)]

8 O: zero (x) because I (x) as I said in our last debate and I'll repeat, John

9 (#) I exempt small businesses from the requirement for large

10 businesses that can afford to provide health care to their employees

11 but are not doing it

In this case, simultaneous speech is present (shown in square brackets) In addition, there is break in the first speaker’s (Obama’s) continuity The initiator of simultaneous speech (McCain) attempts to seize the floor twice but he does not succeed; hence, there is no speaker-switch and the first speaker (Obama) continues with his utterance As a consequence, this non-fluency is one example of Butting-in interruptions

Silent interruptions

Example 5: (Fragment 3, Appendix 3, second debate)

1 M: Health policies, energy policies and entitlement reform What are

2 going to be your priorities, in what order? Which of those will be your

3 highest priority your first year in office, and which will follow, in

7 MC: The three priorities were health (#) //

8→2 M: The three, health (x) health care, energy, and entitlement reform,

9 Social Security and Medicare In what order will you put them in

In this silent interruption [arrow (2)], the first speaker’s (McCain’s) utterance is incomplete, but there is no simultaneous speech It could be inferred from the content that McCain forgets the three priorities, which results in a short pause in his utterance The moderator quickly reminds McCain of the priorities and then the question.

Functions of interruption

Example 6: (Fragment 12, Appendix 2, first debate)

1 M: And what I'm trying to get at is how this is going to affect you not in

2 very (x) in small ways, but in major ways, and the approach you

3 would take as (#) to the presiden//[cy]

4→1 MC: [Well], how about a spending freeze on everything but Defense,

5 Veteran(s) Affairs and entitlement // [programs?]

7 MC: I think we ought to seriously consider, with the exceptions of caring

8 for our veterans, national defense and several other vital issues

In this excerpt, the moderator (Lehrer) interrupts [arrow (2)] McCain while he is making a suggestion of a spending freeze on everything but Defense, Veteran Affairs and entitlement programs as his approach taken to the presidency The moderator seems to get surprised and expects to get McCain’s idea Lehrer’s interruption, in this instance, is purely intended for Clarification purpose He simply wants to know some information on McCain’s spending freeze

It is natural for interruptions of agreement to be seldom in debates in which speakers’ opinions are usually polarized and conflictive However, there are still a small number of agreement interruptions in the 2008 U.S presidential debates, most of which are made by the moderators towards the candidates and vice versa, as follows:

Example 7: (Fragment 10, Appendix 4, third debate)

1 O: But when it comes to economic policies, essentially what you're

2 proposing is eight more years of the same thing And it hasn’t worked,

3 and I think the American people understand it hasn’t worked We need

4 to move in a new direction

6→1 MC: [Let] me (x) let me just say// [Bob Okay, But it’s] (x) 7→2 M: [Okay About 30 seconds]

8 MC: it’s very clear that I have disagreed with the Bush administration I

9 have disagreed leaders of my own party I got the scars to prove it

The second interrupting speech [arrow (2)] can be classified as an Agreement interruption because it manifests the moderator’s agreement on McCain’s request for giving a quick explanation after being accused of proposing the same thing in economic policies for many years

Example 8: (Fragment 23, Appendix 2, first debate)

1 MC: Well, Senator Obama twice said in debates that he would sit down

2 with Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Raul Castro without precondition,

3 without precondition Now, here is (x) Ahmadinejad (#)

4 Ahmadinejad// [who is] Ahmadinejad (x) 5→1 O: [That’s tough]

6 MC: who is now in New York talking about the extermination of the State

7 of Israel, of wiping Israel off the map, and we’re going to sit down

8 without precondition across the table to legitimize and give a

9 propaganda platform to a person that is espousing the extermination of

10 the State of Israel and therefore (#) then giving them more credence

11 in the world arena (,) and therefore saying they’ve probably been

12 doing the right thing because you will sit down across the table from

13 them and that will legitimize their illegal behavior

Obama’s interruption [arrow (1)] may seem ambiguous in terms of meaning

On the surface, his interruption appears to be an Agreement interruption When

McCain had a “great difficulty” pronouncing the name of Ahmadinejad, Obama seems to be “nice, considerate” when acknowledging “That’s tough” to “comfort his colleague in a stumble” 12

However, in order to understand his speech correctly, the co-text and context of the interruption should be taken into account After being criticized for sitting down with Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Raul Castro without precondition, Obama may try to convey that it is a “tough” policy However, the utterance can also be seen as a mockery of McCain’s mispronunciation because Ahmadinejad is not an unfamiliar name to American people, not to mention U.S senators Ahmadinejad – the sixth Iranian President – is in charge of the Iranian nuclear program, which worried the U.S and the European Union Nevertheless, McCain – a 26-year U.S senator, the candidate for the U.S presidency – confuses the name To some extent, McCain’s stumble shows his deficient knowledge of current foreign affairs

Example 9: (Fragment 30, Appendix 2, first debate)

1 MC: No one from Arizona ((chuckles)) is against solar And Senator

2 Obama says he's for nuclear, but he's against reprocessing and he's

12 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-reiser/obama-underwhelms-mccain_b_129818.html

3 against storing, so// (x) [so it's hard to get there from there]

4→1 O: [That's (x) that's just not true, John]

5 O: [John, I'm sorry that (x) that's not true]

6 MC: [And offshore drilling] is also something that is very important, and it

7 is a bridge And we know that if we drill offshore and exploit a lot of

8 these reserves, it will help, at least temporarily, relieve our energy

9 requirements, and it will have I think an important

10 // [on the price of a barrel of oil (.) So I want to say that]

11→2 O: [I (x) I just have to respond very quickly just to correct the (x) just to

13 MC: with the// [Nunn-Lugar] //[thing]

16 MC: I supported Nunn-Lugar back in the early 1990s when a lot of my

17 colleagues didn't That was the key legislation at the time, and put us

18 on the // road to eliminating this issue of nuclear waste and the (x) the

19 nuclear fuel that has to be taken care //[of]

21→6 O: [I (x) I] I just have to correct the record here I have never said that I

22 object to nuclear waste What I've said is that we have to store if safely

Obama’s interruptions [arrows (1), (2), (5) and (6)] shows disagreement, rejection to the first speaker’s (McCain’s) communication; and hence, are classified as Disagreement Being criticized for objecting to reprocessing and storing nuclear waste which will help relieve the U.S energy requirements, Obama interrupts McCain three times just to correct the record that he has never said like that, and to claim that nuclear waste has to be stored safely

The thing that should be noticed is the way Obama addresses McCain in this excerpt Whenever referring to McCain in the first debate, Obama dropped the formal title and called his rival simply “John” This informal form is used 3 times in the excerpt and 24 times during the debate 13 and may make Obama “look the more

13 According to Bennett (2013) at http://books.google.com.vn/books?id=_AVHBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT144&dq=Obama+calls+McCain+by+his+ open and conversational” (Bennet, 2013) However, what Obama tried to do is to ignore McCain’s decades as a senator, and hope other people “not to draw too much of a contrast to his own short tenure in the chamber” 14

There are no cases of Tangentialization interruption available in the three

Example 10: (Fragment 16, Appendix 4, third debate)

1 O: And it means that we can have tough, vigorous debates around issues

2 What we can't do, I think, is try to characterize each other as bad

3 people, and that //[has] been 4→1 MC: [Well] ((softly))

5 O: a culture in Washington that (x) that’s been taking place for too long

6 And // [I think that on (x) I think ( )]

7→2 MC: [Well, Bob, you asked me] a direct// [question] about//

10 MC: Yeah, real quick Mr Ayers, I don't care about an old, washed-up

11 terrorist But as Senator Clinton said in her debates with you, we need

12 to know the full extent of that relationship

In this excerpt, McCain interrupts Obama twice [arrow (1) and (2)] with a speech about Obama’s relationship with ACORN, which demonstrates no awareness of the first speaker’s (Obama’s) statement, and has no theme in common with the first message These interruptions belong to the category of Subject change interruption name&hl=vi&sa=X&ved hUKEwiClun- vtHMAhUDFZQKHR0wBzkQ6AEILzAD#v=onepage&q&fse

14 According to Shear (2012) at http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/debate-challenge-what-to- call-your-opponent/?_r=0

This category contains all interruptions: (i) which are not appropriate to the above categories, or (ii) which are inaudible or too short to determine their content and function

Interruptions of this category are not represented on the statistics figures in the following section.

Results

3.3.1 The relative frequency of different categories of interruption in the three debates

In the three debates, Obama interrupts McCain and the moderators 80 times, and McCain interrupts Obama and the moderators 66 times There were thus 146 cases of interruptions This means that the average time for one interruption is about one minute and eighty-five seconds Clearly, interruptions are very common in political debates

Chart 1: Relative frequency of different categories of interruption made by

Chart 1shows how the different categories of interruption vary across Obama and McCain It can easily be seen that butting-in interruptions are the most frequent form of interruption and silent interruptions the least frequent (the percentage being 63.1% and 4.8%, respectively) Interestingly, overlaps – the most common form of interruptions in political interviews (Beattie, 1981a, 1982) and the most reliable index of dominance (Ferguson, 1977) – is a distant second with a total of 31 cases and simple interruption type closes in third with 16 cases (accounting for 21.2% and 10.9% of all interruptions, respectively)

It could be inferred from the chart that Obama is more aggressive than McCain (Obama interrupts 1.2 times as much as McCain does) However, McCain makes more successful interruptions (simple interruptions) than Obama does (6 times and 10 times, respectively)

It can be easily seen from Chart 2 that Disagreement is the dominant category of interruption Throughout the three debates, interruption of this type accounts for 45.2% of all instances of interruption Obviously, Disagreement interruptions are the most common in political debates where ideas and opinions are bound to diverge and clash In the first debate, the two candidates clash on economy and Iraq They “set out sharply different views of how they would manage the country and confront America’s adversaries abroad” 15 In the third debate, the two men battle “fiercely in their contentious debate” 16 , with an aggressive McCain attacking Obama’s campaign tactics and tax plans The two White House hopefuls clash on energy policy, taxes and the economy

Subject change interruptions, which account for 23.8% of all cases of interruption rank the second after Disagreement According to Mast (2002, p 420), the relationship between dominance and speaking time is “significant” This

15 Cooper & Bumiller (2008) at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/us/politics/27debatecnd.html?_r=0%20-

16 http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/10/16/58329.html

“strong” relationship “seems to suggest that speaking time may be the most important factor in expressing and inferring dominance” (ibid., p 446) In addition, staying on topic in political debates is an “indicator of power”, hence, there is a

“tendency of candidates to shift topics changes” (Prabhakaran, Arora & Rambow,

Clarification Agreement Disageement Tangentialization Subject change

Chart 2: Functions of interruptions made by Obama and McCain

Clarification interruptions rank the third with a total of 16 cases, accounting for 19.1% Agreement interruptions make a modest appearance, totaling 10 instances in 3 debates, accounting for 11.9% Although almost every interruptions of this type are made by the moderators towards the candidates and vice versa, there are few agreement interruptions made by candidates to each other These interruptions appear to be supportive, but they are in fact defamatory

This chapter aims to encapsulate the study, suggest some implications evaluate the limitations of the paper and propose recommendations for further studies.

Recapitulations

The purposes of this study are to investigate patterns of interruptions employed by Obama and McCain in the three debates and analyze interruptions utilized by the two nominees to achieve their goals in the debates The analysis of

146 cases of interruptions revealed the following results

The paper has employed Ferguson’s (1977) typology to identify and classify interruptions in the three presidential debates Viewing interruptions as deviations from smooth speaker-switches, Ferguson (1977) divides interruptions into four categories: (i) Simple interruptions, (ii) Overlaps, (iii) Butting-in interruptions and

In the three debates, Butting-in interruptions are the dominant category which accounts for two third of all identified interruptions 69% of all interruptions made by Obama belong to this category, McCain’s number stands at 56% Butting- in interruptions are normally successive but unsuccessful attempts to seize the floor

In other words, the act of continuous interrupting usually meets with being interrupted; hence, there is a tendency of cross talks where no parties relinquish the floor for an extended period of time The unrelenting endeavor to take the floor makes the debates stuffier As a result, the aforementioned figure suggests that interruptions are generally uncompromising in the debates

In addition to employing Ferguson’s classification which views interruptions as deviations from smooth speaker-switches, the writer has also utilized Kennedy and Camden’s (1983) coding scheme to make the contents of these interruptions clearer Kennedy and Camden classify interruptions into six categories: (i)

Clarification, (ii) Agreement, (iii) Disagreement, (iv) Tangentialization, (v) Subject change and (vi) Other

Predictably, Disagreement and Subject change interruptions, which serve to negate the interrupted, are the most common ones (accounting for 69 percent of all cases) Obviously, Disagreement is numerous in political debates where politicians

“set out sharply different views of how they would manage the country and confront adversaries abroad” and battle fiercely to promote “their own opinions, their party and their personas” Likewise, as speaking time is an indicator of power and dominance, the two nominees utilize every chance to gain and/or prolong control of the floor, or to maintain topics in case of limited time Therefore, subject change interruptions are also inevitable However, this category can be seen as not preferable in conversations as it shows no awareness or even complete disregard for the speaker’s statement During the three debates, McCain makes more subject change interruptions than Obama (12 instances in comparison with 8 cases made by

On the contrary, the number of Agreement and Clarification interruptions – showing support and concurrence – are inconsiderable compared with the two aforementioned categories It is observed that most of Agreement interruptions made by Obama and McCain are not directed towards each other, but the moderators Obama and McCain make 8 and 2 agreement interruptions, respectively Interestingly, an agreement interruption made by Obama only shows sympathy for McCain’s mispronunciation on the surface, but in fact he is sneering at McCain’s poor understanding of international issues As a result, his agreement interruption turns out to be a defamatory one

Tangentialization category, which makes light of the first speaker’s message, is absolutely ignored in the debates The reason might be that in such context where each opponent wants to differentiate himself from his “political enemy” and attempts to show that his policies are superior to those of his rival, showing support via interruptions would not be preferable, let alone making light of his contender’s statement

From the data analysis results, one noteworthy trend is Obama’s flexible use of interruptions In total, he makes 80 interruptions out of 146 cases (accounting for 54.8%) Originally, his frequent use of interruptions can create an impression of an Obama who is aggressive and bad-tempered However, his alternate use of agreement interruptions – manifesting concurrence and compliance – and backchannels (4 times compared with none by McCain) – short utterances showing the second interlocutor’s support to the first speaker’s message without the intention of taking the floor – can partly offset the negative image he has shown The utilization of interruptions makes him a combative interlocutor when necessary, whereas agreement interruptions and backchannels make him a good listener

Another trend is Obama’s wise use of agreement interruptions which manifest support, concurrence, compliance, or understanding of the first speaker’s

Throughout the three debates, Obama makes 8 agreement interruptions, 4 times as much as McCain does Nonetheless, not all of his agreement interruptions merely imply concurrence By employing an agreement interruption when McCain mispronounces the name of Ahmadinejad, Obama obtains three things: Firstly, he appears to be nice, considerate when trying to comfort his colleague in a stumble

Secondly, he claims that the speaker’s policy is tough at the same time Finally, he makes a mockery of McCain’s deficient knowledge of current foreign affairs

McCain, whereas, is thought to be “angry and bad-tempered” and unable to “control himself well under pressure” The possible reason is that McCain prefers subject change category which discounts the other’s messages or directly challenge the other’s opinions Moreover, his omission of backchannels also creates a presidential candidate unwilling to listen and unwilling to cooperate

Being carried out with a view to make a conversation analysis of interruptions in the three rounds of the 2008 U.S presidential debates, the paper has concentrated on two main objectives The first objective involves the detailed linguistic realizations of patterns of interruptions employed by each candidate in the debates The second one is to take into consideration the effects of each candidate’s interruption pattern These two objectives are the guidelines for all the process of implementing the study

The study starts with an overview of conversation analysis, in particular turns, turn-constructional units, turn-taking and institutional talks Afterwards, much effort has been put into the concepts of interruption: (i) definitions of interruption by lexicographers and linguists, (ii) classifications of interruption in which Ferguson’s and Kennedy and Camden’s serve as the basis for data analysis in the succeeding part Next, the relationship among interruption and dominance, domineering and power are investigated In addition, the concepts of debates and presidential debates are also mentioned Finally, the paper provides with related studies on interruption in political settings, and studies on the 2008 presidential debates

The data analysis has been carried out with an emphasis on the two issues

The first one is on the linguistic realizations patterns of interruptions in the three debates The second one focuses on the effects of these interruption patterns

Based on the analysis of the data, some conclusions have been drawn

Firstly, interruptions are generally uncompromising in the debates This is because butting-in interruptions are the dominant category, accounting for two third of all identified interruptions In the debates, the act of continuous interrupting usually meets with being unrelenting interrupted, hence there is a tendency of cross talks where no parties relinquish the floor for an extended period of time In addition, the paper also reveals Obama’s wise utilization of agreement interruptions to defame his political enemy On the surface, Obama’s interruption shows sympathy for the opponent, but in fact he implies his opponent’s poor understanding.

Implications

Based on the conclusion drawn, some theoretical and pedagogical implications have been put forward in the hope of removing the one-sided view of interruption as a negative phenomenon and providing useful guidance on deliberate utilization of interruption as an effective strategy for students to win in debates as well as other challenging and competitive speech exchanges

Firstly, CA-centric approach and the more content-driven approach are key methodological approaches to provide an in-depth explanation of interruption as a means of communication in politics

Secondly, this paper is hoped to remove the one-sided view of interruption as a negative phenomenon which should be avoided in communication On the contrary, interruption can be an effective tactic to achieve intentions when being employed appropriately

Thirdly, the study may provide useful guidance on deliberate utilization of interruption as an effective strategy for students who want to win in debates as well as other challenging and competitive speech exchanges

Finally, the research might provide trainers and teachers with helpful information in teaching interrupting strategies Also, trainees and students can learn useful strategies to become persuasive and successful speakers and orators.

Limitations and suggestions for further studies

However hard the writer might have tried, shortcomings are unavoidable

Firstly, only verbal interruptions are focused in the study, non-linguistic devices are excluded Such non-linguistic devices like gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, etc can also be inquired because they are said to have made a poised, sincere and credible Obama

Secondly, interruptions made by the moderators in the debates are also not investigated These interruptions may also be examined though the number might be insignificant

Lastly, interruptions in the study are among male interlocutors The next study might focus on interruptions in three debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S presidential debates to explore gender differences in interrupting

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TRANSCRIBING CONVENTIONS Zimmerman & West (1975) adopt the transcript techniques and symbols devised by Gail Jefferson in the course of research undertaken with Harvey Sacks

They revise techniques, add or drop symbols as they seem useful to the work There is no guarantee or suggestion that only symbols and transcripts would allow one to do any unspecific research tasks; they are properly used as an adjunct to visual- audio recordings of the debates

(x) I’ve (x) I’ve met him once

Parentheses encasing an "x" indicate a hitch or stutter on the part of the speaker

Double obliques indicate the point at which one speaker is overlapped or interrupted by another

When nothing appears to the right of this symbol, the speaker has been overlapped in the middle of the last syllable preceding the slashes

[ ] J: If I//could D: [But] you can’t

Brackets around the first part of a speaker's utterance mean that the portion bracketed overlapped or interrupted a previous speaker's utterance

Colons indicate that the immediately prior syllable is prolonged

A: ’Swat I saidB: But you didn’t

An equal sign is used to indicate that no time elapses between the objects “latched” by the marks Often used as a transcribing convenience, it can also mean that a next speaker starts at precisely the end of a current speaker’s utterance

Underscoring is utilized to represent heavier emphasis (in speaker’s pitch) on words so marked

Punctuation marks are used for intonation, not grammar

Underscoring is utilized to represent heavier emphasis (in speaker’s pitch) on words so marked

Single parentheses with words inside indicate that something was heard, but the transcriber is not sure what it is They can serve as a warning that the transcript may be unreliable

Single parentheses without words in them indicate that something was said but not caught by the transcriber

Double parentheses enclose “descriptions”, not transcribed utterances

Score sign indicates a pause of one second or less that wasn’t possible to discriminate

(1.2) Numbers encased in parentheses indicate the seconds and tenths of seconds ensuing between speaker’s turns They may also be used to indicate the duration of pauses internal to a speaker’s turn

In addition, for the sake of convenience, the line numbering style used by Yemenici (2001) is adopted Each numbered line does not indicate a new utterance

1 IR: Good evening do you know this Hỹseyin Baybaásin Abdỹlkadir Bey?

2 AA: Efendim first of all I’m from Diyarbak_r, I’m a Diyarbak_r deputy, and3→1 IR: [yes

4 AA: = Hỹseyin Baybaá sin is also from Diyarbak_r, from Lice The photograph5→2 IR: [yes Do you know him?

6 AA: =that shows this uhm is a photo taken at a Diyarbak_r night …

IN THE FIRST 2008 U.S PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

LEHRER: All right Let's go back to my question, how you all stand on the recovery plan And talk to each other about it What do (x) could (#) we got five minutes We can nego//[tiate]a deal right here But (#) I mean, are you (x) do you favor this plan (,) Senator// [O]bama (?)// [And:::]//

OBAMA: [(uh-huh)] ((laughs)) OBAMA: [Well]

LEHRER: [And] you, Senator McCain? Do you (x) are you in favor of this plan?OBAMA: =We haven't seen the language yet, and I do think that there's constructive work being done out there

LEHRER: Are you going to vote for the plan, Se//[nator McCain?]

MCCAIN: [I (x) I (x) I] hope so, and I //[believe so]

LEHRER: [As a Uni]ted States senator (,) // you will vote (x) you are going to vote for the plan (?)

MCCAIN: Sure, but (x) but let me (x) let me point out I also warned about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and warned about corporate greed and excess and CEO pay and all that

OBAMA: And that's why it's so important, as we solve this short-term problem, that we look at some of the underlying issues that have led to wages and incomes for ordinary Americans to go down, the (x) the (x) a health care system that is broken, energy policies that are not working, because (#) 10 days ago, John said that the fundamentals of the economy are //[sound]

LEHRER: [Say (x)] say //[it directly to him]

OBAMA: [I do not think that they are]

LEHRER: Say it directly to him

OBAMA: Well, the (x) John, 10 days ago, you said that the fundamentals of the economy are sound And ::://

MCCAIN: Are you afraid I couldn’t hear him? ((Laughter))

LEHRER: I'm just determined to get you all to talk to each other I'm going to try

(Laughs) OBAMA: The::: and (x) and I just fundamentally disagree And//[un]less we are holding ourselves accountable day-in, day-out, not just when there's a crisis for folks who have power and influence and can hire lobbyists but for the nurse, the teacher, the police officer who frankly at the end of each month, they've got a little financial crisis going on

MCCAIN: Well, again, I don’t mean to go back and forth, but //[he ( )]

MCCAIN: Senator Obama suspended those requests for pork barrel projects after he was running for president of the United States He didn't happen to see that light there in the first three years as a member of the United States Senate Nine hundred and thirty-two million dollars in requests (#) //maybe

MCCAIN: to Senator Obama is not a lot of money But the point is that you see, I hear this all the time It's only $18 billion Do you know that it's tripled in the last five years? Do you know that it's gone completely out of control, to the point where it corrupts people? It corrupts people That's why we have, as I said, people under federal indictment and charges It's a system that's got to be cleaned up I have fought against it My career I have fought against it Now, Senator Obama didn't mention that along with his tax cuts he is also proposing some $800 billion in new spending on new programs Now, that's the fundamental difference between myself and Senator Obama I want to cut spending I want to keep taxes low The worst// thing we could do// in this economic climate is to raise people's taxes// [(and I do)]

OBAMA: =[I (x) I (x) I]I don’t know where John’s getting his figures Let’s (x) let’s just be clear

LEHRER: Respond directly to him about, to Senator Obama about that, about the, his (x) he’s made it twice now// about your tax, your policies about tax// [cut]?

MCCAIN: [Well](x) well let me give you an example of what Senator Obama find objectionable the business tax

MCCAIN: So the point is, I want people to have tax cuts I want every family to have a $5,000 refundable tax credit so they can go out and purchase their own health care// I want to double the dividend, from $3,500 to $7,000, for every dependent child in America I know that the worst thing we could possibly do is to raise taxes on anybody, and a lot of people might be interested in Senator Obama's definition of "rich."

LEHRER: (Yeah) LEHRER: Senator Obama, do you have a question for Senator // [McCain on that]?

OBAMA: [Well, well l:::let (x)] let me just make a couple// of points