The Use of Hedges for Observing Cooperative Principles in Joe Biden versus Donald Trump Debate in the 2020 American Presidential Election

This study discussed the use of Hedges to observe cooperative principle rule, especially in debate. As is known that in a debate, usually a moderator gives questions to the debaters and the debaters try to answer the question. And when they are not sure about their answer, hedges are used which function to make things fuzzier as defined by Lakoff (1975). This study’s aims are to analyze the use of hedges for observing the cooperative principles rule and to analyze the interlocuter’s responses in the 2020 American presidential election debate between Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. The researcher adopted the theory about understanding hedges from Lakoff, (1973), the hedges’ function from Fraser (2010), and the cooperative principle theory from Grice maxim (1983). This research is qualitative research and to analyze the data the researcher uses discourse analysis. The sources of the data were the transcripts and the videos of Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s presidential debate. From the results of the study, the researcher found that the 2020 American presidential candidate, Joe Biden, broke the maxim quality 4 times and obeyed the maxim quality once, for the maxim quantity Biden neither broke nor obeyed the maxim quantity. while for maxim relation, Biden broke 5 times and obeyed once, and for maxim manner, Biden broke once and 0 obeyed with maxim manner. While the 2020 American presidential candidate, Donald Trump broke the maxim quality 4 times and obeyed the maxim quality once, for the maxim quantity Trump neither broke nor obeyed the maxim quantity. while for maxim relation, Trump broke 5 times and obeyed once, and for maxim manner, Trump broke once and 0 obeyed with maxim manner.

Keywords: Hedges, Cooperative Principle, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump debate