Politeness strategies in the 1992 vice presidential and presidential debates.

• Author: Hinck, Edward A.

Since the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates, researchers have assessed audience members' use of information regarding a candidate's personality, advocacy skills, ideology, political image, political record, vision of leadership, stand on the issues, as well as other aspects of leadership potential. However, one type of information that has not been investigated in studies of political debates concerns the politeness of the candidates, the degree to which they attack and defend the political face of opposing candidates. This study develops an approach to political debates based on the idea that politeness is an important dimension of political leadership and contributes to an audience's understanding of political image, a central concern in the evaluation of a political candidate. To determine if candidates utilized different politeness strategies, we examined the 1992 vice presidential and presidential debates using Kline's operationalization of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory.

While politeness has been studied mainly within interpersonal contexts, the prevailing conditions of disagreement in the ritualized confrontations of a political debate place positive face resources of participating candidates at risk. Political debate discourse can be understood as contests about presidential character, political image, and candidate self-esteem--all elements of positive face as defined by Brown and Levinson. To illustrate how debates threaten positive face, we review Brown and Levinson's concepts of positive and negative face, explain why positive face dominates candidate concerns in the debates, and consider how examining positive face in debates extends Brown and Levinson's theory beyond interpersonal contexts.

POLITENESS THEORY

Brown and Levinson's politeness theory is based on Goffman's (1967) claim that selfimage is an important element of human interaction. Face-saving is defined in terms of identity management--the need to preserve one's self-esteem or face wants in interaction. Brown and Levinson assert that face-saving strategies are recognized universally as necessary for interactions to proceed. While interactants may recognize the need and importance of maintaining the face wants of all involved, Brown and Levinson argue that face-threatening acts are routinely committed.

Two types of face wants have been studied. Positive face is the need for a person to maintain a favorable self-image; negative face is the expectation that one will be free of imposition or obligations in pursuing one's goals. Positive face is threatened when disagreement occurs. Negative face is threatened when requests occur. Three social factors are theorized to account for differences in perceptions of how serious a face-threatening act (FTA) is in a transaction: relative power (P), distance (D), and ranking of imposition (R).

Positive face is at risk when interactants hold equal power. In this circumstance, disagreement threatens the positive face of the interactants (Holtgraves, 1997). Presuming the disagreement can be resolved, one or the other will be wrong in his/her claims. The risk of arguing and disagreeing naturally calls into question interactants' competence as advocates. Negative face is at risk when there is an asymmetrical relationship of power between interactants. If a subordinate makes a request of a superior, the subordinate must frame and phrase the request in such a way that it does not impede the superior's freedom or autonomy in the interaction.

Positive face is most relevant for the study of political debates. Political candidates are equal on the stage of debate--the mystery of office is unavailable to incumbents when they stand beside the challenger. A debate presumes each person is equal in power so that the deciding difference is measured in terms of one's arguments, not wealth, title, or prestige. The debate is held to reveal and test the candidates' position on the issues. Agreement on formats and rules prior to the debate ensures that each candidate's autonomy is preserved. Moderators are named to enforce the rules that candidates and their camps have agreed on. Despite the occurrence of some instances where negative face was threatened in national presidential debates, and the fact that candidates may be required to struggle for turns to speak in debates featuring less constraining formats, positive face appears to be the dominant concern in political debates.

Politeness Theory and Presidential Debates

Brown and Levinson have indicated that the presence of an audience is a factor that requires consideration in elaborating their theory:

In our view, P [relative power], D [social distance], and R [ranking of imposition] (as defined in 3.4.2) can be seen to subsume most of the culturally specific social determinants of FTA expressions, but we must concede that there may be a residue of other factors which are not captured within the P, D, and R dimensions. In addition to the liking factor, the presence of an audience is another, as we mentioned above, which operated in part to affect definitions of situational formality', and so enters into the context-variability of P, D, and R assessments. It seems likely that formality (and other sorts of situation and setting classifications--see e.g. Levinson 1979a; Brown and Fraser 1979) will have principled effect on assessments of FTA danger, and there may well be cross-culturally valid generalizations as to the direction of this effect (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 16).

While politeness research has focused mainly on dyadic interaction, some studies have moved beyond the dyadic context in an attempt to assess how audiences perceive a speaker's politeness. Myers (1989) has considered the complex situation where an audience of readers might respond to the politeness evident in scientific articles and in small group contexts of scientific collaboration (Myers, 1991); Obeng (1997) studied politeness strategies in Akan judicial discourse; and Wilson (1992) has applied a politeness model to Paul's letter to Philemon.

Recently, debate scholars have begun to pursue studies that assess candidates' image formation as it develops out of interactive clash. Benoit and Wells (1996) developed the claim that candidates' images are at stake in debates. Similarly, Beck's (1996) study of the 1992 vice presidential debate argued that a candidate's social face was at stake in a debate and that the candidates' ability to manage turn-taking affected the audience's perception of the candidates.

How candidates argue is as important if not more so than what they argue about. According to Beck (1996), "Candidates' capacity to present themselves during such consequential public interactions [as debates] hinges on their interactional skills, not just their ability to look a certain way or say particular things. This critical factor in political communication merits exploration" (p. 166).

Our belief is that debates are a special kind of social situation where candidates are required to disagree in ways that persuade audiences to perceive them favorably. In short, candidates are expected to project a favorable political image--positive face--in a context that calls for face threatening acts. Cognizant of the fact that audience members are carefully scrutinizing each language choice for clues concerning presidential ability, candidates must calculate what constitutes an appropriate strategy in the attack and defense of competing political images before, during, and sometimes after a debate (when other debates are scheduled in a campaign). In these highly charged, competitive situations, social face must be managed carefully before an audience of voters who are observing for the purpose of judging each candidate's ability to sense the appropriate strategy at each point in the transaction. In these respects, choices regarding politeness strategies might be one way to measure a candidate's good wil l and judgment regarding his image, his opponent's, and the values he aspires to represent for the community. These qualities represent important dimensions of political leadership (Aristotle, trans. 1954; Barker, 1962) and are assessed by audiences in political debates (Hinck, 1993). Given Barber's (1992) and Beck's (1996) claim that candidates hold dear their self-esteem as political leaders it seems worth asking how they go about advancing and defending that self-esteem in the dramatic confrontation of a debate.

Perceptions of Politeness as Essentializing Impressions of Leadership

Politeness theory is relevant to the assessment of candidates' fitness for office. A candidate's purpose in a debate is to persuade the public to view him/her and his/her policies in the most favorable light. Thus each candidate has a goal to attain and the attainment of that goal by one candidate is usually accomplished at the expense of another candidate's image. Debate participants can rarely agree without risking the perception on the part of the audience that they have capitulated to the opposition (Martel, 1983). Despite the criticism of some that political debates are not truly debates (Auer, 1962; Auer, 1981; Bitzer & Reuter, 1980; Jamieson & Birdsell, 1988; Lanoue & Schrott, 1991), these transactions presume disagreement between candidates and invite deliberation on the part of the audience to decide which candidate best performs the role expectations for office. By identifying where each candidate's face is threatened by an opponent's arguments and by analyzing how each candidate responds to face-th reatening messages, we can describe the ways in which face-saving skills of candidates contribute to perceptions of leadership character and competence.

Politeness offers a way of studying essentialized impressions of candidate performance. It seems unreasonable to assume that most audience members track the debate exchanges as units of advocacy. Few audience members take notes while watching a debate...