The power of persuasion: Modality and issue framing in the 2012 Taiwan Presidential Debates

Abstract

Presidential debates have become a pre-election fixture in Taiwan since the first-ever televised presidential debate held in 2004. In the 2012 Taiwan presidential election, it was a three-way contest among the incumbent Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the two challengers: Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and James Soong of the People First Party (PFP). The crucial issues in this presidential race were the domestic economy and cross-strait stability. Candidates jousted in two televised presidential debates on 3 December and 17 December 2011, respectively, to persuade the undecided toss-up voters. This article aims to adopt a critical discourse analysis approach to explore the ideological underpinnings of modality used by the three candidates in the 2012 Taiwan Presidential Debates. This modality analysis of the debate discourse, in view of a dearth of studies on the use of modality in Chinese political discourse, will provide an insight into the politicians’ use of modal verbs, adverbs, and adjectives as linguistic and ideological tools to show their obligation, make promises, demonstrate their commitment, and most importantly frame their arguments in a purpose of persuading the electorate and soliciting their support.

Spaces of agency within contextual constraints: a case study of teacher’s response to EFL reform in a Chinese university

“…Similar to the modality in English, in Chinese, a speaker's attitude is expressed through the use of modal adverbs. These may be placed at the beginning of a sentence or between the subject and the predicate, for example, 大概 da gai 'presumably', 肯定 kending 'definitely', 一定 yiding 'certainly'; and, the preceding modal verb or modal adjective, for example, 必須 bixu 'must', 應該 yinggai 'should', 要 yao 'must' and so on (Cheng, 2016). These model expressions not only indicate the speaker's attitude but are also used by the speaker to influence the audience's attitude and behaviour (Cheng, 2016).…”

Acclaims, attacks, defenses: Critical discourse analysis of Ma Ying-jeou’s 2012 Taiwan presidential debates discourse

“…It demonstrates the candidates’ proficiency in aspects of law, intelligence, experience, and integrity (Entin, 1993), and functions to affect voters’ perceptions of specific concerns, topics, events, and the candidates’ issue positions (Bartels, 2006; Iyengar and Kinder, 1987; Kenski and Stroud, 2005; Lau and Redlawsk, 2006; Lemert, 1993; Rzepecka, 2016). It acts as a persuasive platform for the candidates to solicit voters’ support (Cheng, 2016). It allows candidates to exert unofficial power through persuasive attempts (Alavi-Nia and Jalilifar, 2013).…”

“…Benoit (2003) provides functional analysis on how candidates establish preferability through acclaiming, portray the opposing candidate or party unfavorably through attacking, and repair their own reputation from attacks by the opposing party through defending. Cheng (2016) posits that these three functions are highly intertwined with the language use of persuasion.…”

“…Throughout the past two decades, some researchers focus on the investigation of the political or presidential debates held in various countries including Brazil (Porto, 2007), Croatia (Skoko, 2005), Finland (Isotalus, 2011), France (Allison and Perry, 2010), Ghana (Van Gyampo, 2009), Greece (Matsaganis and Weingarten, 2001), Israel (Benoit and Sheafer, 2006), Korea (Kim et al, 2008; Lee and Benoit, 2010), Spain (Herrero and Benoit, 2009), Taiwan (Benoit et al, 2007b; Cheng, 2016; Wen and Yu, 2008), Ukraine (Benoit and Klyukovski, 2006), and so on. This article will focus on the deliberate manipulation of linguistic strategies in Taiwan presidential debates.…”

Shades of purple: A discursive analysis of mainstream political party responses to UKIP

“…Using both approaches allowed to provide a comprehensive analysis and discussion of selected political speeches. To the best of our knowledge, only one other paper has combined both approaches: Cheng (2015) analysed two televised debates between the three candidates in the 2012 Taiwan Presidential Elections and focused on the way the candidates framed their arguments to gain compliance on contentious issues whilst deploying persuasive tactics to convince voters. Although political parties will typically select their policy position strategically (Budge, 1982) the speeches analysed for this paper highlight a reactive response to an apparent surge in public concern regarding the valence issue of immigration.…”