Analysing American Political Discourse - A Text Complexity Perspective

Completely different from an institutionalized parliamentary debate, they are inevitably influenced and limited by government instances that control mass communication. In this sense institutions contribute to the spread or reinforcement of a certain system of values.
Linguistically, the primary characteristic of this kind of exchange is the use of many meta-represented propositions, namely the verbal representation a possible world, not belonging to the hearers or the speaker, a reality of possibility and future. This is expressed concretely from verbs such as worry and say. The use of meta-language is an important communicative device: such concept in linguistics means "to talk about language using the same language", and it is a crucial concept for any linguistic study. In political debates, we will occasionally find a sort of reflection about "what has been said, or seems to be said". Great importance is given to shared knowledge and contextual information: the references can be evaluated only by virtue of contextual knowledge (Chilton, 2004).

Radiophonic, television interviews presuppose interaction. The plan form of an interview is naturally question and answers, but we should take into account that questions could be not neutral, and answers not straight. In this kind of interactions, speech acts theory is put at stake: the interviewee tends to use a statement to suggest, insinuate. Intonation in this context can be an extra device used for indirectness. In these terms we could affirm that an interviewee is never totally neutral: he represents the general social consensus, and this is evident when the interviewed is an exponent of some terroristic or extremist movement. After 11th of September any reference to enemies implies an aversion to Middle East: everyone who uses "we" implicitly sustained the policy of counter position between the "other" dangerous and different, reinforcing consensus in this direction (Chilton, 2004).

Presidential elections are the most common environment for the production of political speeches in form of debate between the two main parties in America, Democratic and Republican. The topics are usually controversial and paramount for a specific historical moment and such debates have a notable power in defining the final result of the elections.
As a first step, every party nominates their candidates. Thereafter, candidates meet in a large hall, usually a University, before a broad audience of citizens.

The format has changed through the time, candidates used to be questioned by moderators or journalists, even members of the audience. Rules of the format have been established by Memoranda of Understanding (MOU), a document describing in details a bilateral agreement between parties (Moore, 2003).
The broadcasting of debates is essential for the spreading of ideas to the large public, and it occurs by radio or television, but nowadays by internet, YouTube and channels sites. Bloomberg news reports that by 2000, the first debate has been seen by 46 million of people out of a population of 280 million. In 2004, the first debate was seen by 62.5 million people.