A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE 2016 BETWEEN HILLARY CLINTON AND DONALD TRUMP

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN VÕ Ý NHI A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE 2016 BETWEEN HILLARY CLINTON AND DONALD TRUMP M.A THESIS IN ENGLISH Binh Dinh, 2019 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN VÕ Ý NHI M.A THESIS IN ENGLISH A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE 2016 BETWEEN HILLARY CLINTON AND DONALD TRUMP FIELD : English Linguistics CODE : 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: TRẦN THỊ MINH KHÁNH, Ph.D Binh Dinh, 2019 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN NGUYỄN VÕ Ý NHI SO SÁNH CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ TRONG TRANH LUẬN TRANH CỬ TỔNG THỐNG MỸ 2016 GIỮA HILLARY CLINTON VÀ DONALD TRUMP Chuyên ngành : Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số : 8.22.02.01 Người hướng dẫn: TS TRẦN THỊ MINH KHÁNH Binh Dinh, 2019 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I honestly declare this thesis “A comparative study of politeness strategies in the presidential debate 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump” is my own work This thesis does not contain the work or parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the references Quy Nhon, July 2019 Nguyễn Võ Ý Nhi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I gratefully acknowledge my deep indebtedness to all of my teachers who have provided me with useful and interesting lectures, which have helped me to lay the foundation for this thesis I respectfully express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Trần Thị Minh Khánh, Ph.D., for her great guidance, valuable encouragement as well as comments on the thesis, which makes me possible to complete the thesis before the due date I would also like to send my gratutide to Quy Nhon University, Postgraduate Department, and Foreign Languages Department Finally, I would like to thank my beloved parents for my supports throught my life ABSTRACT The study focused on investigating linguistic politeness devices and providing a comparison of gender-related differences between between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in using politeness devices namely hedges, boosters and tag questions The paper is theoretically based on the view of gender-related politeness by Holmes (1995) The study was carried out through the adoption of quantitative, qualitative, analytic, synthetic, and descriptive methods The findings showed that linguistic politeness forms of hedges, boosters and tag questions were employed by both candidates However, there were differences in the use of linguistic realizations of politeness between the male and female The candidates tend to use more hedges than boosters and tag questions Hillary Clinton in the presidential debate tends to use more hedges than Donald Trump With regard to Boosters, the total amount of boosting devices produced by Trump is higher than that of Clinton Besides, Trump used the tag question in some cases, Clinton hardly used it This difference results from gender-related features of language usage CHAPTER INTRODUCTION In this chapter, all the preliminaries of the thesis are introduced It starts with the rationale of the research, followed by its aim and objectives of the study and research questions It continues with the significance of the study and the scope of the study The organization of the present study is presented in as the last part of the chapter 1.1 Rationale People of both genders cannot live without using a particular language to communicate Thus, language is considered as one of the most important elements in communication According to Finegan: “language is often defined as an arbitrary vocal system which is used by human to communicate with one another” (2008) With the use of language, people can convey their ideas and their opinions to others in order to create an interaction between them and the society After all, language is the method of communication that distinguishes us from animals as well as differentiates between one individual and another, and gender of the speaker It should be noted that there are many social factors that influence laguage use Gender difference is one of the factors that plays a role in language use as stated by Holmes - “Gender is just one social variable which intersects with other social categories and groups that people belong to” (1995:10) During the last few decades, gender differences in language use have been widely discussed in many academic studies It is noticeable that there are significant and consistent differences in communication styles between men and women In the last two decades, linguists have analyzed a plenty of evidence related to differences between men and women in their use of politeness strategies Although linguists have examined different models of politeness and gender, their studies have been challenged over the years It seems possible that women and men may have different perceptions of appropriate linguistic behaviors in different contexts Generally, women tend to express positive and negative politeness more often and more explicitly than men (Holmes, 1995: 6) In fact, there are many studies having been conducted regarding Gender and Politeness strategies I am also interested in knowing the true facts about the differences of utterances used by women and men Hence, this inspired me to conduct a research on gender-related politeness strategies in the presidential debate with the topic: “A comparative study of politeness strategies in the presidential debate 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.” The aim of this study is to find out dissimilarities in using politeness forms between these male and female politicians This study is expected to contribute to their understanding of gender-related politeness devices in social reality and its connection to language and interaction 1.2 Aim and objectives 1.2.1 Aim of the study The study is carried out with the aim to investigate linguistic forms which may be specified as gender-related politeness strategies such as hedges, boosters and tag questions - being used in the presidential debate 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump 1.2.2 Objectives of the study To achieve the aim of the study, the research will focus on the following objectives: + To find out politeness devices used in the presidential debate 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump + To provide a comparison of gender-related differences between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in using politeness devices 1.3 Research questions To achieve the aims and objectives mentioned above, the thesis concentrates on answering the following questions: What are the politeness devices in the presidential debate 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump? What is the frequency of occurrence of these politeness devices? What are the similarities and differences in using politeness devices between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump? 1.4 Significance of the study Findings of this study are expected to provide some insights in politeness strategy and gender-related politeness devices include including hedges, boosters and tag questions that may be useful as the following: - To show the readers gender-related politeness devices including hedges, boosters and tag questions - It is expected that the finding can be useful for orther researchers to make more positive contributions to the theory of gender-related politeness - It can also be useful for English Department Students as a contribution to their understanding of gender-related politeness devices in social reality and its connection to language and interaction - By studying the politeness strategy, people are more aware of and pay more attention to the application of politeness in their communication such as more carefulness in determining the choice of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences in expression of ideas 1.5 Scope of the study This study concentrates on linguistic forms which may be specified as genderrelated politeness devices include hedges, boosters and tag questions 1.6 Definitions of terms in the study  Hedges A hedge is a mitigating word, sound or construction used to lessen the impact of an utterance due to constraints on the interaction between the speaker and addressee, such as politeness, softening the blow, avoiding the appearance of bragging and others Typically, they are adjectives or adverbs, but can also consist of clauses such as one use of tag questions It could be regarded as a form of euphemism Hedges are considered in linguistics to be tools of epistemic modality; allowing the speaker to signal his or her degree of confidence in a connected assertion Hedges are also used to distinguish items into multiple categories, where items can be in a certain category to an extent Hedges can also be used to politely give commands and requests to others (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_(linguistics))  Boosters A term that serves to amplify or strengthen an utterance, such as “really” (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/booster)  Tag questions A tag question is a constituent that is added after a statement in order to request confirmation or disconfirmation of the statement from the addressee Often it expresses the bias of the speaker toward one answer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_question) 1.7 Organization of the thesis The study will be organized in five chapters as follow: Chapter Introduction This chapter covers the rationale, aims and objectives, research questions, the ... used in the presidential debate 2016 between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and gender-related differences in the use politeness strategies in the debates and speeches of Donald Trump and Hillary. .. gender-related politeness strategies in the presidential debate with the topic: ? ?A comparative study of politeness strategies in the presidential debate 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. ”... lessen the impact of an utterance due to constraints on the interaction between the speaker and addressee, such as politeness, softening the blow, avoiding the appearance of bragging and others