Gender and Linguistic Authority: Hedges and Boosters in U.S. Presidential Debates | ||
| Cairo Studies in English | ||
| Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available Online from 04 November 2025 | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/cse.2025.428464.1270 | ||
| Author | ||
| Hasnaa Hisham* | ||
| Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt | ||
| Abstract | ||
| The relation between gender and language has been underpinned by contentious assumptions that ranged from views that stress direct correlation between the two elements to approaches that portray a more complex picture. This relation is further complicated by common stereotypes about how women in particular use language. Such stereotypes are sometimes exploited to keep women marginalized and excluded from positions of power, especially in the political arena. Against this backdrop, this study examined the degree to which male and female politicians use hedges and boosters in political discourse. It employed a corpus-based, mixed methods approach and relied on Hyland’s (1996) taxonomy of hedges and boosters and the (im)politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1987). The data consisted of a self-compiled corpus of all the American presidential and party primary debates that featured a female candidate (2008-2024). The findings portray a complex picture of how male and female speakers navigate the dynamics of discourse and power. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Gender; authority; political discourse; hedges; boosters; debates; corpus analysis; (Im)politeness | ||
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