Effectiveness of interruptions as a communicative strategy in the 2020 Presidential Debates in the USA

Alexey Tymbay

doi:10.5817/BSE2022-2-5

Effectiveness of interruptions as a communicative strategy in the 2020 Presidential Debates in the USA

Vol.48,No.2(2022)

Alexey Tymbay

https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2022-2-5

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/digilib.77879

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Abstract

The research hypothesizes that the American 2020 Presidential debate participants used recurrent interruptions as a communicative strategy to gain more power on the debate floor and win the voters' support. The form of political interaction (televised debates) also affected the candidates' speech behavior in a way that it added another participant (the general public) to the discussion; as a result, an institutionally controlled form of political discourse was subjected to a medial turn. This kind of media influence contributed to the speakers' choice of specific interruption types during the debates. The research analyses the turn-taking strategies of D. Trump and J. Biden employed in the First and Second (and Final) Debates and matches them with the pre- and post-debate poll results. The article concludes that although having a certain impact on the perception of the politicians' personalities, the effect of interruptions as a debate strategy on the voters' final choices was marginal.

Keywords:
debate; political discourse; turn-taking; communicative strategies and tactics

Pages:
101–118

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