Pragmatic & paralinguistic features of televised political discourse

A research instrument for the televised political debate.

Code the evidence. Review the interpretation. Trace every figure back to the recording.

DebateLens carries a doctoral analytical framework into a working environment. It records turns, codes them across five domains, and builds the repetition matrix, gaze proportions, and culturemic lexical fields the framework requires — while keeping every claim traceable to something observable in the recording.

The comparative interpretation reports which participant's discourse is denser in the framework evidence counted for this corpus. It is not a statement of who won the debate, a ranking of candidates, or a prediction of an election.

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The five domains

Every observation in the workspace is filed under one domain and one category. Nothing is stored outside the framework.

Cohesion & coherence

The study of cohesion and coherence: repetition typology, the repetition matrix of central utterances, and intertextuality in televised political discourse.

Simple lexical repetition
Complex lexical repetition
Simple paraphrase
Complex paraphrase
Superordinate repetition
Hyponymic repetition
Co-reference repetition
Propositional repetition (as implicated)
Complex phrasal propositional repetition
Intertextuality
Transitional signal (LCT)
Anaphora (LCT)
Cataphora (LCT)
Academic lexical phrase (LCT)

Pragmatic study

A pragmatic study of political discourse in a televised political debate: institutionalisation, systematic breaching of the co-operative principle and Gricean maxims, the movement from explicit to implicit, implicature as the real message, and code-switching.

Institutionalisation of political discourse
Breaching the co-operative principle
Departing from the explicit
Implicature as the real message
Implicature as an evasion outlet
Code-switching
Ad hominem (rhetorical move)
Straw man (rhetorical move)
False dilemma (rhetorical move)
Appeal to emotion (rhetorical move)
Appeal to authority or popularity (rhetorical move)
Loaded question (rhetorical move)
Red herring (rhetorical move)
Hasty generalisation (rhetorical move)

Paralinguistic dimension

The paralinguistic dimension: facial gesture, kinesics and their cultural background, eye gaze and direction of gaze, and the proportional analysis of q-gaze and a-gaze across fluent speech, hesitant speech, and phrase pausing.

Facial gesture
Kinesics
Eye gaze & direction of gaze
Phrase pausing & silence
Vocal delivery

Ideology & bipartisanship

Ideology and bipartisanship in the televised political debate and its impact upon the audience: media language, the nature of media discourse, and political discourse as a commodity.

Media language inducing ideology
Nature of media discourse
Impact of media upon politics
Political discourse as a commodity
Bipartisanship & audience impact

Culturemic & pragmemic

ADAR culturemic analysis: cultural keywords, lexical fields, pragmemic patterns, audience orientation, and the cultural framing of political claims in televised discourse.

Cultural keyword
Lexical field
Pragmemic pattern
Audience orientation
Cultural frame

The repetition matrix

Mark the central utterances of the debate, then link turn to turn by repetition type — simple and complex lexical, paraphrase, superordinate, hyponymic, co-reference, propositional. The matrix is computed from those links, never hand-tallied.

Gaze proportions

Code each gaze observation as q-gaze or a-gaze against fluent speech, hesitant speech, or phrase pausing. DebateLens returns the proportional distribution per speaker, with denominators shown.

Culturemic fields

Group cultural keywords into lexical fields, trace pragmemic patterns, and record how turns orient to an imagined cultural audience — all tied back to the transcript.

Evidence before reading

Observable evidence and researcher interpretation are separate fields on every record. Anything machine-drafted stays a draft, excluded from every computed figure until you accept it.

What is automatic, and what needs your review

The analysis runs on its own from end to end. What it produces enters the record as a draft, and drafts stay outside every computed figure until you accept or qualify them.

Draft material

Transcription and segmentation

Visible at once so you can correct it. Not yet a research finding.

Draft observations

Automatic coding

Labelled as drafts and excluded from every calculation until reviewed.

Approved or qualified

Your review

Accepted records enter the matrices, proportions and tallies.

Traceable output

Report

States coverage, caveats, and what it excluded.

Follow one turn through the whole chain

What it does not do

It does not judge whether a statement is true or false.
It does not detect intention, sincerity, or state of mind.
It does not diagnose personality or psychological condition.
It does not declare a winner, rank candidates, or issue a universal candidate score. Where a corpus has been coded and reviewed, it presents a clearly labelled, evidence-linked comparative interpretation of it — with probability, confidence, coverage and caveats attached.