Expressing and resisting power in American political debates

Abstract

The paper investigates political debates in the US to determine how power relations are expressed through language in a controlled situational context. As Presidential campaign events, debates have generated a great deal of interest; thanks to the new media, they bring together large audiences and are crucial in creating, maintaining and enforcing politicians’ identities. Party political debates paving the way to the party candidacy for the 2016 American Presidential elections are examined to see how politicians interact in a public multiple interview. The goal of this paper is to see what strategies politicians use to enact, reproduce and resist power relations (Fairclough 1989, 2010), while respecting the debate rules and the mediation by appointed journalists. Political debates occur in potentially conflicting situations of asymmetrical talk in which political ‘face’ (Brown, Levinson 1987) is at risk. The paper thus examines the turn of politicians’ roles which shift from an attacking attitude - enacting strategies to express power - to a defensive attitude of facework (Masumoto, et al. 2000). In conclusion, debates play a vital role in constructing the US political life by encouraging politicians to manage discussion and conflict using different strategies, challenging the role of the moderator as the participant in the most powerful position.