Rejection strategies in American political debates: A Pragma- linguistic Study

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate the strategies of rejection in the arena of political debates. The main challenge in dealing with rejection strategies pragmatically lies in the idea that rejection is divided into two types: Explicit or Implicit. As such, the study tries to identify the main implicit pragma-linguistic strategies of rejection that the American debaters employ in arguments with their opponents. Furthermore, it highlights  these indirect strategies of rejection that have been utilized more frequently by American debaters so as to serve their political agendas. Moreover, the study pinpoints the stage at which the rejection process takes place.

Thus, the qualitative study uses an eclectic model primarily based on previous studies conducted in the field of argumentation ( Van Eemeren & Grootendrorst, 2018) to investigate rejection strategies. The study has been concluded that American debaters more frequently employ offensive than defensive tactics to defend their positions and reject those of their opponents. As a result, they make an effort to discredit the opinions of their opponents in a variety of ways such as accusations, insulting, criticizing, denial, and condemning. Moreover, It has been noted that the process of rejecting a standpoint is initiated within the developing stage. Thus, the developing stage can be viewed as the essence of argumentation in which viewpoints are defended or rejected.