Topika Dialogowania z Wyborcami w Polskich i Amerykańskich Finałowych Debatach Przedwyborczych

This study presents a comparison of the methods of communication with voters employed by Polish and American politicians. The research was conducted on the closing statements made by political leaders during election debates. The corpus included debates from the United States for the years 1996–2016, and from Poland for 1995–2015. The closing speech is a part of the debate where instead of interacting with each other, the candidates address themselves directly to the audience. It is the crowning moment of the debate and represents an appeal to the voters for support in the election. The analysis features 24 American and 26 Polish speeches. Both qualitative and quantitative methodologies were employed to illustrate the features of persuasion across two different political cultures. A list of repeated persuasive strategies was established, and divided into the categories of logos, pathos and ethos. The frequency of their use in both halves of the corpus material was then calculated.