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Abstract
Dow and Tonn's feminine rhetorical style is used to evaluate the argument structures used in presidential debate discourse. Results suggest that the feminine style element of references to personal experience is prevalent in debate discourse but that inductive structure and use of anecdotes and examples are less prevalent than one might expect. Further, feminine style elements, including references to personal experience and use of inductive structure, have decreased over time since the 1960 debate. Differences were also found in use of specific feminine style elements by political party, incumbency status and election outcome.
Notes
Danette Ifert Johnson (PhD, Northwestern University, 1994) is Associate Professor of Speech Communication at Ithaca College, 407 Muller Center, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA. Email: [email protected]. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Jaclyn A. Knopp and Justin D. Valleau with refining the coding scheme and coding debate transcripts. Completion of this project was supported in part by a Faculty Innovation Grant from West Virginia Wesleyan College.
