Reasoning proposition in us Presidential Debate 2012 between Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney

ABSTRACT

Basically, reasoning is the process of constructing a rational relation between the political claims and the evidence presented so the political claim could be judged true. Reasoning occurs after two actions, which are simple understanding and decision assessment. Reasoning proposition in this study is a statement which functions as standpoint and could be proven by giving supports such as evidences or facts. In presidential debate, the candidates should be able to convince the audiences in order to elect them to be a president, and it could happen by using reasoning proposition. Thus, it is impossible to be able to use spontaneous proposition in presidential debate. Therefore, the researcher is interested in analyzing the ways of Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney as presidential candidates use their propositions to develop strong arguments in US Presidential Debate 2012.

In this study, the researcher proposed the formulation of research questions that are about the kinds of propositions that are used in US presidential debate 2012 by the two presidential candidates “Barrack Obama” and “Mitt Romney” and also the way how the two presidential candidates use the propositions. Consequently, in this study, the researcher uses qualitative method with descriptive approach because it analyzes and depicts the reasoning proposition in US presidential debate 2012 between Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney. For analysis, the researcher uses Oesterle‘s (1954) concept which categorize proposition based on unity, quality, quantity, matter and composition mode, but focus more on how the candidates use reasoning proposition by using Vedung’s (1982) theory.

From the findings chapter, it shows that both Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney use the types of reasoning proposition in US Presidential debate 2012 on 22th of October 2012 proposed by Oesterle (1954). In the way of using the reasoning proposition, both Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney accomplish the standards of Vedung’s (1982) theory in developing their arguments. By using the reasoning proposition, they could convince the audience in order to elect them as a president.

Therefore, I suggest to the future researcher to conduct a research in more specific way especially on reasoning form or reasoning pattern. In relation to the finding of new thing explained above, the future research can also use other theory related to reasoning proposition in debate such as using Freeley and Steinberg’s theory (1986). By applying this, it is expected to provide more empirical data in using the reasoning proposition, especially in the theory proposed by Vedung (1982).