I. Poggi, Dipartimento di Filosofia, Comunicazione e Spettacolo, Universita’degli studi Roma tre

 

Résumé :

A TV political debate is a kind of persuasive interaction in which each politician tries to persuade the audience that he is better than the other, hence electors should stay on his side, for instance by voting him instead of the opponent(s).

According to a goal and belief model of persuasion (Poggi, 2005; Poggi and Pelachaud, 2008; Poggi, D’Errico and Vincze, 2010; 2011; 2013), the persuader may resort, alternatively or in combination, to the three Aristotelian strategies of lògos – logical reasoning and argumentation –pathos  – the appeal to the Audience’s emotions –, and ethos  – the Orator’s character, his trustworthiness, credibility and reliability, hence his capacity to elicit the Audience’s trust).

Trust in everyday life is measured in terms of two dimensions: competence (knowledge, intelligence, reasoning and planning capacity) and benevolence (caring the others’ goals more than one’s own, not hurting or deceiving others….). But in politics, trust in a politician seems to include (Poggi, D’Errico and Vincze, 2012) one more dimension in addition, dominance: the capacity to influence others, not to submit to them, but to win in a competition; should a politician be the most honest and ethical, and the most clever and competent, if he is not able to impose his will in the political contest, what is the point to vote for him?

Therefore politicians in TV debates try to get the upper hand, that is, to gain power in the contest; and to do so on the one side they try to enhance their power, mainly by exhibiting an image of power and dominance, while on the other side they try to lower the power of the opponent.

This presentation will illustrate how the facial expression of emotions, but also other body signals in gesture, voice, gaze and posture are used by politicians during political debates, on the one side to display dominance, on the other, to discredit the opponents.

Various “dominance strategies” will be analyzed, that is, ways to show – through bodily behaviors – that  one has more power than the other: from the “blatant” strategies of aggressiveness, imperiousness or defiance, to the more “subtle” ones of victimhood,  showing indifference, or calm strenght.

Further, the body signals will be overviewed that are used to discredit the opponent in political debates, and their exploitation not only in specifically discrediting speech acts, like insults, comments, irony and parody, but also during and within “plain” speech acts.