The Language of Politeness in the US Presidential Debates in 2012

Politeness is one of the linguistic means in rhetorical construction, as the speaker seeks to avoid expressions that embody actions that threaten the social face, as verbal acts that contradict the desires of the recipients make them feel uncomfortable, and that the purpose of polite strategies is to mitigate the impact resulting from those actions, even if the use of those actions is exacerbated strategies that aggravate social face threats are called “social face aggravating actions,” meaning that polite strategies can be used in reverse to increase the social face threat of the recipient called “social face aggravating practices, candidates in presidential debates seek to appear positively to persuade the audience through polite strategies in verbal communication in polite behavior to show communicative competence in order to enhance their reputation, and to discredit the opponent by using these strategies inversely to increase the severity of acts of a social face threat.