Journal of English Language and Education
Vol 10, No 3 (2025)

Turn-Taking Strategies in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

Ahzami, Farhan (Unknown)
Saehu, Andang (Unknown)
Fauzi, Erfan Muhammad (Unknown)



Article Info

Publish Date
27 May 2025

Abstract

Turn-taking is fundamental in political debates, as control of the turn reflects a speaker’s communicative authority. Limited research has compared how different candidates utilize turn-taking strategies to assert control or dominance in presidential debates. This study aims to identify and analyse the turn-taking strategies employed by Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in the 2024 U.S presidential debate using Stenstrom (2014) framework. A total of 130 data points were collected from the ABC News YouTube Channel and analysed using qualitative descriptive methods. Following the steps proposed by Merriam Tisdell (2015). The findings show that Trump predominantly used aggressive interruptive and taking the turn strategies, while Harris tended to apply more structured and holding the turn strategies. The study concludes that turn-taking strategies not only shape the structure and flow of the debate but also reflect each candidate’s dominance in the interaction.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

jele

Publisher

Subject

Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media Other

Description

Journal of English Language and Education (pISSN: 2597-6850 and eISSN: 2502-4132) is a journal that focuses on researching or documenting issues in education, language education, applied linguistics, English education, English language teaching, English Literature, language assessment and ...