Trump and Biden First Presidential Debate (2020) : A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The US presidential elections of 2020 witnessed two debates between the candidates namely, Donald Trump and Joseph Biden. This study is a Critical Discourse Analysis, using the Van Dijk Model (2006), of the first debate between the opponents. This investigation aims to identify the ideologies and beliefs embedded in the corpus and the strategies used by the nominees, focusing on positive self-representation and others’ negative representation. Accordingly, we attempt to illustrate the polarization and the use of “Us” as the in-group versus “Them” as the out-group. Therefore, the study is based on mixed methods as the qualitative method was used to identify the ideological strategies employed, while the quantitative one is used to statistically illustrate polarization. Consequently, we have come to the results that the Van Dijk Model (2006) does fit the analysis of the corpus. Additionally, the speakers used the discursive strategies found in the implemented model: positive self-representation and negative other-representation. Moreover, other strategies were found such as syntactic and rhetorical structures as well as speech acts. Importantly, the results have shown that Biden made more successful use of the abovementioned strategies, thus, demonstrating qualities of dominance and power.