AN ANALYSIS OF THE STRENGTHS OF ARGUMENTS OF THE 2012 UNITED STATES' PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE : The Case Of Barrack Obama And Mitt Romney

• Main Author: Octaviani, Herlin (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: 2014-04-25.
• Subjects: Thesis; NonPeerReviewed
• Online Access: Link Metadata
• Notes: http://repository.upi.edu/11472/1/S_ING_0807535_Title.pdf; http://repository.upi.edu/11472/2/S_ING_0807535_Abstract.pdf; http://repository.upi.edu/11472/3/S_ING_0807535_Table%20of%20cContent.pdf; http://repository.upi.edu/11472/4/S_ING_0807535_Chapter%20I.pdf; http://repository.upi.edu/11472/5/S_ING_0807535_Chapter%20II.pdf; http://repository.upi.edu/11472/6/S_ING_0807535_Chapter%20III.pdf; http://repository.upi.edu/11472/7/S_ING_0807535_Chapter%20IV.pdf; http://repository.upi.edu/11472/8/S_ING_0807535_Chapter%20V.pdf; http://repository.upi.edu/11472/9/S_ING_0807535_Bilbliography.pdf; http://repository.upi.edu/11472/10/S_ING_0807535_Appendix.pdf
• Keywords: JL Political institutions (America except United States); L Education (General)

The study aims to measure the arguments' strength of the 2012 United States' presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, in their latest presidential debate. The researcher selected 40 arguments from the debate transcription, based on the completeness requirement of the primary elements of Toulmin's Argumentation Model (1958), such as claim, ground and warrants. The data analyzed through the three stages of analysis, namely cogency analysis, soundness analysis and strength level analysis. From the data analysis results, three qualifications were discovered, such as: strong argument, weak argument and very weak argument. The analysis results show Barrack Obama as the winner of the latest U.S presidential debate. Obama won the debate because his strong arguments' frequency is higher than Romney's strong argument in the debate. Furthermore, most of Obama's arguments, either strong or weak, are constructed in the form of deductive arguments. As the nature of deductive argument, which guarantees the cogency and the validity of its conclusion, therefore, Obama's arguments in the latest presidential debate 2012 are mostly cogent and valid. Keywords: argument strength, cogency analysis, soundness analysis, strength level analysis. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengukur kekuatan argument dari kandidat presiden Amerika tahun 2012, Barrack Obama dan Mitt Romney, pada debat kepresidenan. Peneliti memilih 40 argumen pada traskripsi debat, yang dipilih berdasarkan syarat kelengkapan tiga elemen utama dari Model Argumentasi Toulmin (1958) yaitu claim, grounds dan warrant. Data yang diperoleh kemudian dianalisa melalui tiga tahapan analisa, yaitu cogency analysis, soundness analysis dan strength level analysis. Dari hasil analysis data, ditemukan tiga kualifikasi kekuatan argumen pada debat yaitu strong argument, weak argument and very weak argument. Hasil penelitian menunjukan Obama memenangkan perdebatan karena memiliki frekuensi strong argument yang lebih banyak dibandingkan dengan Romney. Selain itu, hampir semua argumen Obama dalam debat, baik strong argument atau weak argument, terkonstruksi dalam argumen deduktif. Sebagaimana deduktif argumen yang selalu menjamin cogency dan validity dari kesimpulannya, maka kebanyakan argumen-argumen Obama di dalam debat kepresidenan Amerika tahun 2012 juga terkonstruksi dalam argumen yang cogent dan valid. Kata Kunci: argument strength, cogency analysis, soundness analysis, strength level analysis.