Hedged performatives in English political debates

Abstract EN

Political speeches have been dealt with from different angles from a long time.

They have been regarded as an important part of rhetoric.

Politicians or other public persons often use rhetorical devices to convey their thoughts and ideas.

They have goals set in order to convince their listeners and persuade them to elect him/her.

This is done through different linguistic devices like hedged performatives, which are the main concern of the paper.

The paper aims at investigating the use of Hedged Performatives in political debate and knowing the effect of gender differences in using the devices and the most frequently used ones as well.

To meet the aims of the paper, the final presidential debate between Clinton and Trump is selected and analysed.

Depending on the results analysed, a number of points are found out as: probability is the main concern of the debate where no certainty is predicted from their speech, and most of the devices are used by Clinton more than Trump.

Finally, at the end of the paper a list of references is presented.