Disagreement Strategies in the 2020 United States Presidential Debates

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Izah, Nasiatul (2021) Disagreement Strategies in the 2020 United States Presidential Debates. Undergraduate thesis, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya.

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Abstract

In communicating, we cannot prevent disagreement when we have an idea or opinion that is different from the other person we are talking to. Therefore, we need a specific strategy to convey disagreements appropriately to make good communication. The purpose of this study was to analyze the disagreeing strategies used by the presidential candidates in the 2020 United States presidential debates. The presidential candidates are Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In this study, there are two research problems; (1) what are the types of disagreeing strategies used by the two presidential candidates, and (2) what are the similarities and differences between the two presidential candidates in applying disagreeing strategies. This study used the theory of Muntigl and Turnbull (1998). This study used descriptive qualitative methods in collecting data, classifying data, and analyzing data. The data from this study are the transcripts in the form of words, phrases, and sentences obtained from the videos of the 2020 United States presidential debates. The transcripts from the debate videos were analyzed by identifying the type of disagreeing strategies used by the presidential candidates. The researcher herself was the only instrument in this study. The data collection was carried out by reading and selecting all the video scripts from the 2020 United States presidential debates. Then, the procedures of data analysis contain identifying, classifying, and analyzing the data. The final step is to draw the conclusions of the results of the study. The results of this study indicate that there are ten types of disagreeing strategies used by Donald Trump with a total of 101 utterances, and there are seven types of disagreeing strategies used by Joe Biden with a total of 101 utterances. There are combinations of types of disagreeing strategies found in this study; (1) challenge followed by contradiction, and (2) counterclaim followed by challenge and contradiction. Furthermore, there are two similarities and one difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in applying disagreement. The two presidential candidates have different in the use of the type of challenge. The results show that the two candidates who have the same power level tend to use the type of contradiction in showing their disagreement.