A Pragmatic Study Of Hedges In 2016 American Presidential Debates

Linguistic hedges are significant pragmatic markers in human communication.As an indispensable member in hedge family,hedges would not affect the normal operation of communication,whereas it makes the content of conversation more flexible and appropriate.In recent years,many scholars have conducted the researches of hedges from the pragmatic perspective,and a lot of researches also emerged about hedges in various kinds of discourses.The present thesis selects the 2016 American presidential debates between Trump and Clinton as the research data and mainly attaches importance to the following questions:(1)What is the frequency and distribution of each types of hedges in the 2016 America Presidential Debates?(2)What are the differences between two candidates in terms of the usage of hedges in the debate?(3)What are the pragmatic functions of hedges in these three political debates? To begin with,the author selects the materials of three debates proposed by the official website Tencent.Next,the author picks up all the hedges in each debate and afterward classifies them in detail according to Prince’s(1982)classification standard.Moreover,Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle are adopted as a theoretical framework of the present thesis.With regard to the research methods,both qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to study the frequency and distribution of hedges as well as pragmatic function of hedges.After careful and detailed analysis of the entire data,the author comes to the following conclusions: despite the fact that both candidates have employed a large amount of hedges in the course of the debates,much more differences between two candidates still exist(1)In the first two debates,hedges are employed more frequently in Clinton’s discourse than that in Trump’s.However,during the last debate,Trump has a higher frequency of hedges adoption than Clinton.(2)Two candidates have different preference to the use of hedge.(3)With regard to the debate topics,Trump uses more hedges under the topic of “jobs,Securing America and minority issue”while Clinton uses more hedge under the topic related with “jobs,energy policies and abortion”.Finally,pragmatic function of hedges in political debates for both debates is presented,such as to attack opponents,to give relatively accurate information,to enhance the statement’s credibility,to show politeness and to create a future version.The significance of this paper’s research is that through the analysis of hedges in the presidential campaign debate,it helps politicians to make their language more prudent in choosing pragmatic skills,and it can also improve people’s pragmatic awareness in daily communication,achieving communicative purposes through the use of hedges.