Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Functional Analysis Of French And South Korean Political Leaders' Debates, Yun Son Choi, William L. Benoit

Speaker & Gavel

This study reports two replications of research employing the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse, analyzing political leaders‘ debates from one European and one Asian country. French political debates from 1988 and 1995 and South Korean debates from 1997 and 2002 were content analyzed using the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse. Acclaims were the most common function, followed by attacks and then defenses, in both French and South Korean debates. Policy was discussed more often than character in French and South Korean debates. In France, but not in South Korea, incumbent party candidates acclaimed significantly more and attacked less …