A PRAGMATIC CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN SPEECHES BY BARRACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIESFACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---NGUYỄN THỊ HUỆ A PRAGMATIC CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-NGUYỄN THỊ HUỆ

A PRAGMATIC CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF

COHESIVE DEVICES IN SPEECHES BY BARRACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2012

(Phân tích tính dụng học-văn hóa của các phương tiện liên kết trong các bài phát biểu của Barrack Obama và Mitt Romney trong cuộc tranh cử

tổng thống Mỹ, 2012)

M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HANOI, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-NGUYỄN THỊ HUỆ

A PRAGMATIC-CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN SPEECHES BY BARRACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2012

(Phân tích tính dụng học-văn hóa của các phương tiện liên kết trong các bài phát biểu của Barrack Obama và Mitt Romney trong cuộc tranh cử

tổng thống Mỹ, 2012)

M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà,

HANOI, 2014

I certify that this thesis is the result of my own research and the substance ofthis thesis has not been submitted for a degree to any other universities orinstitutions

This thesis would not have been possible without the assistance and support

of many individuals I wish to acknowledge and express my appreciation of thesepeople for their invaluable contributions

Firstly and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to mysupervisor, Dr Do Thi Thanh Ha , University of Languages and InternationalStudies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi, for her valuable guidance andsuggestions, encouragement and enthusiasm throughout my study

Secondly, I take this opportunity to show my sincere thanks to all myteachers during my M.A course at University of Languages and InternationalStudies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their informative and interestinglectures, which laid the foundation for my study

On the completion of this paper, I must acknowledge my debt to the authorswhose work I used for my reference

Last but not least, I wish to convey my thanks to my family for theirunderstanding and support

Hanoi, 2014Nguyen Thi Hue

This thesis investigates the cohesive devices used in the third debate byBarack Obama and Mitt Romney in Unites States presidential election, 2012 Itoffers theoretical knowledge of Cohesive Devices in English as well as backgroundinformation about the third debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney inUnites States presidential election, 2012 The thesis then focuses on analyzing thecohesive devices employed in that debate Three main parts included in this thesisare introduction, development and conclusion Chapter I provides a review ofrelevant theories based on which the theoretical background is laid Chapter II dealswith some information about the third debate by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney

in Unites States presidential election, 2012 Chapter III, also the major one,analyzes in detail the cohesive devices used by the two candidates To sum up, thepaper claims the results obtained and offers suggestions for further researches

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

TABLES

Table 1: Grammatical and lexical cohesion 8Table 2: The frequency of occurrence of reference used by Obama and Romney 19Table 3: The frequency of occurrence of substitution used by Obama and Romney 21Table 4: The frequency of occurrence of ellipsis used by Obama and Romney 23Table 5: The frequency of occurrence of conjuction used by Obama and Romney.25Table 6: The frequency of occurrence of reiteration used by Obama and Romney 29Table 7: The frequency of occurrence of collocation used by Obama and Romney 31

FIGURE

Figure 1 : Types of reference 9

TABLE OF CONTENS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

ABBREVIATION iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

TABLE OF CONTENS vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 The research questions of the study 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods of the study 2

6 Design of the study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Discourse and Discourse analysis 4

1.1.1 Discourse analysis 4

1.1.2 Discourse context 5

1.2 Cohesion 6

1.2.1 The concept of cohesion 6

1.2.2 Cohesion and Coherence 6

1.2.3 Types of cohesion 7

1.3 Persuasion in political speeches 14

CHAPTER 2: AN OVERVIEW ON “UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2012” AND “THE THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE” 16

2.1 An overview on United States presidential election, 2012 16

2.2 United States presidential election debates, 2012 and the third presidential

debate 17

CHAPTER 3: AN ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN THE THIRD DEBATE BY BARACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES PRESIENTIAL ELECTION, 2012 19

3.1 Grammatical cohesion 19

3.1.1 Reference 19

3.1.2 Substitution 21

3.1.3 Ellipsis 23

3.1.4 Conjunction 24

3.2 Lexical cohesion 28

3.2.1 Reiteration 29

3.2.2 Collocation 31

CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING COHESION 35

4.1 Major findings 35

4.2 Implications for the teaching and learning cohesion 37

4.2.1 Implications for teachers 37

4.2.2 Implications for learners 38

PART C: CONCLUSION 39

1 Recapitulation 39

2 Conclusion 39

3 Limitations of the study 40

4 Suggestions for further studies 40

REFERENCES 41

SOURCES OF DATA 43 APPENDIX 1 I

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study

Since antiquity the genre of political speech has been considered as a means

of influencing audiences through rhetoric, which aims at persuading, claimingleadership and moving audiences to action with arguments In recent years, politicaltexts have been analyzed to track legislative agendas and political topics and toestimate ideological positioning often using natural language processing

We know that every four years, hundreds of thousands of Americanswill welcome the glory moment of electing a new president They will canvassfor their favorite candidates willingly And every candidate will apply his or herrich language expressions, impassioned speeches and wholehearted attitudes totry to win more votes In 2012, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney captured theworld’s attention Speeches by them have not only attracted the interests ofpolitical scientists and historians, but also attained the attention of linguists.Many researches focused on the use cohesive devices in their speeches However,the question is whether these devices can contribute to the success of the producers

in persuading the audience It is this question that inspires me the idea of carryingout the research

2 Aims of the study

The study serves the following main aims:

- to give a brief overview on discourse and discourse analysis with the two relatedaspects: cohesion and coherence

- to investigate and describe the employment of cohesive devices in the debate towork out their cohesive functions as well as their roles in creating the success of theusers

3 The research questions of the study

The study tries to answer the following questions:

1 What are the cohesive devices used in the third debate by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Unites States presidential election, 2012?

2 What are the frequencies of occurrence of these cohesive devices?

3 How do cohesive devices contribute to the success of the speeches?

4 Scope of the study

This study focuses solely on speeches by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney inthe third debate in Unites States presidential election, 2012, mainly based onlinguistic views of Halliday and Hasan

5 Methods of the study

To attain the aims of the study, the author has employed the QuantitativeMethod It means that the thesis focuses more on the collection and analysis ofnumerical data and statistics Counting and measuring are common form ofquantitative method The result of the study is a number or a series of numbers.These are often presented in tables, graphs or other forms of statistics

6 Design of the study

Within the scope mentioned above, the study has three main parts

Part A is “ INTRODUCTION” which consists of the rationale, aims, researchquestions, scope, method and design of the study

Part B is “ DEVELOPMENT” includes three chapters Chapter I provides a review

of relevant theories based on which the theoretical background is laid Chapter IIdeals with some information about the third debate by Barack Obama and MittRomney in Unites States presidential election, 2012 Chapter III, also the major one,analyzes in detail the cohesive devices used by the two candidates

Part C is “CONCLUSION” in which the author summarizes the main pointsintroduced in the study.

The study ends with the “REFERENCES” which list all the materials and sources ofinformation used in this study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW1.1 Discourse and Discourse analysis

1.1.1 Discourse analysis

Discourse analysis (DA) is concerned with the relationship between languageand the context in which it is used According to Nguyen Hoa (2000), discourseanalysis can be considered as “a study of how and for what purposes language isused in certain of context of situation and the linguistic means to carry out thesepurposes” This means that analysis of discourse looks not only at the basic level ofwhat is said, but takes into consideration the surrounding social and historicalcontexts

Discourse analysis has been developed from the work of different disciplines

in the 1960s and early 1970s, including linguistics, semiotics, psychology,anthropology and sociology There have been many interpretations to what is meant

by Discourse analysis British discourse analysis was influenced by M.A.KHalliday’s functional approach of language His framework emphasizes the socialfunction of language and the thematic and information structure of speech andwriting Halliday and Hasan (1976) and De Beaugrande (1980) have madecontribution to this branch of linguistics in pointing out the links between grammarand discourse

Yule (1996) states:

“In the study of language, some of the most interesting questions arise in connection with the way language is ‘used’, rather than what its components are ( ) we were, in effect, asking how it is that language-users interpret what other language users intend to convey When we carry this investigation further and ask how it is that we, language-users, make sense of what we read in texts, understand what speakers mean despite what they say, recognized connected as opposed to jumbled or incoherent discourse and successfully take part in that activity called conversation, we are undertaking what is known as discourse analysis.”

Therefore, discourse analysis is very important to understand a text and one

of the key technical terms in discourse analysis is cohesion

1.1.2 Discourse context

The term “context” has been received various views from various scholars.Nunan (1993) defines: “Context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse,and within which the discourse is embedded” He claims that context consists oftwo types: linguistic and non-linguistic Linguistic context is referred to as co-text

It surrounds the piece of discourse under analysis Non-linguistic context was taken

up by Firth (1957) who placed great emphasis on the “social context” He sawcontext of situation as crucial determinants of utterance meaning Lately, Hallidayand Hasan (1976) focus on the context of situation They suggest a three-componentmodel of context: field, tenor and mode which can be represented as follows:

- Field: it refers to the subject matter and it may be similar to certain uses of theterm domain in computational linguistics: what is happening, to whom, where andwhen, why it is happening, and so on…

- Tenor: it refers to the social relation existing between the interactants in a speechsituation It includes relations of formality, power, and affect (manager/clerk, father/son) Tenor influences interpersonal choices in the linguistic system, and thereby itaffects role the structures and the strategies chosen to activate the linguisticexchange

- Mode: it describes the way the language is being used in the speech interaction,including the medium (spoken, written, written to be spoken, etc.) as well as therhetorical mode (expository, instructive, persuasive, etc.)

Field, tenor and mode of discourse are in a dialectical relationship Thecollectively define the context of situation of a text They are contextual variables ofwhat is called a register In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for aparticular purpose or in a particular social setting Halliday and Hasan (1976)

interpret 'register' as “the set of meanings, the configuration of semantic patterns,that are typically drawn upon under the specified conditions, along with the wordsand structures that are used in the realization of these meanings”.

This study is concentrating on the concept of cohesion, which is usefullysupplemented by that of register

1.2 Cohesion

1.2.1 The concept of cohesion

The concept of cohesion is closely connected with text It is defined asgrammatical and lexical relationship between different elements of a text Yule(1996) states that a text is usually considered to have a certain structure whichdepends on factors quite different from those required in the structure of singlesentence Some of them are described in terms of cohesion, or the ties andconnection which exist within a text

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), cohesion refers to the structural text-forming relations” They claim that “the concept of cohesion is asemantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and thatdefine the text”

“non-1.2.2 Cohesion and Coherence

The distinction between cohesion and coherence has not always beenclarified partly because both terms come from the same verb cohere whichmeans sticking together In fact, cohesion is the network of different kinds offormal relations that provide links between or among various parts of a text,and is expressed partly through the grammar and partly through thevocabulary Coherence, on the other hand, is understood as the quality of beingmeaningful and unified As for Nunan (1993), coherence is “the feeling thatsequences of sentences or utterances seem to hang together”

Coherence refers to the type of semantic and rhetorical relationship thatunderlines texts Coherence refers to the type of semantic of rhetoricalrelationships that under texts Richards, Platt, Webster (1985) stated that:

“Coherence refers to the rhetorical devices, to ways of writing and speaking thatbring about order and unity and emphasis Coherence can obtain on the basis ofrelevance, the co-operative principle, the common shared backgroundknowledge between participants in a speech event, and how discourse isstructured, as well” Moreover, they also add that coherence is the relationshipswhich link the meanings of utterances in discourse or of the sentences in atext In addition, Nguyen Hoa (2000) states that coherence is built uponsemantic ties in discourse Therefore, if cohesion refers to the linguistic elementsthat make a discourse semantically coherent, then coherence involves with whatmakes a text semantically meaningful In short, coherence is embodied by asystem of cohesive devices and cohesion is mainly used to ensure coherence

McCarthy (1991) states: “Exophoric reference directs the receiver ‘out of’the text and into an assumed shared world” On the other hand, endophoric functionrefers to the text itself in its interpretation (Brown and Yule, 1983) Endophoricreference is divided into two classes: anaphoric relations which involve lookingback in texts to find the referent and cataphoric relation which looks forward fortheir interpretation.

Halliday and Hasan (1976) also classify reference into three types:personal reference, demonstrative reference and comparative reference

- Personal reference track of function through the speech situation using nounpronouns like “he, him, she, her”, etc and possessive determiners like “mine, yours,his, hers”, etc

Prime minister has resigned He announced his decision this morning.

- Demonstrative reference keeps track of information through location usingproximity references like “this, these, that, those, here, there, then, and the”

I always drink a lot of beer when I am in England There are many lovely pubs there.

This is not acceptable.

- Comparative reference keeps track of identity and similarity through indirectreferences using adjectives like “same, equal, similar, different, else, better, more”,etc and adverbs like “so, such, similarly, otherwise, so, more”, etc

A similar view is not acceptable.

We did the same.

Substitution

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), substitution is “a relation on thelexico-grammatical level, the level of grammar and vocabulary, or linguistic form”.There are three general ways of substituting in a sentence: nominal, verbal, and

clausal In nominal substitution, the most typical substitution words are “one and

ones” In verbal substitution, the most common substitute is the verb “do” In

clausal substitution, an entire clause is substituted by “so” or “not” The followingare some examples of substitution

 Nominal substitution:

Let's go and see the bears The polar ones are over on that rock

In the second sentence, “ones” refers to the noun “bears” appearing before It is,therefore, called nominal substitution

 Verbal substitution

A: Did Peter finish his report?

B: He might have done

The verb “done” in B’s answer is a substitute of the verb phrase “finish his report”

In this case, “done” is an example of verbal substitution

 Clausal substitution

Everyone thinks he’s guilty If so, no doubt he’ll resign.

In this example, “so” institutes the clause “he’s guilty”.

Ellipsis

Ellipsis, as for Halliday and Hasan (1976) is an omission of certain elementsfrom a sentence or a clause and can only be recovered by referring to an element inthe proceeding text If substitution is replacing one word with another, ellipsis is theabsence of that word, "something left unsaid" Ellipsis requires retrieving specificinformation that can be found in the preceding text

There are three types of ellipsis too: nominal, verbal, and clausal

 Nominal ellipsis

My roommates come from Japanese Both [ ] can speak English fluently

In this instance, the sentence must be filled with “my roommates” in the gap so as

to be fully interpreted However, these are omitted as it is not necessary for readers

to understand the meaning of the sentence

 Verbal ellipsis

Mary ate some chocolate chip cookies, and Robert [ ] some pudding.

In the given example the predicator “ate” is left out in the second half of thesentence and is presupposed because it already occurred before It would, of course,also be possible to repeat the predicator again at the position where it has been left out

 Clausal ellipsis

A: Mary’s getting married, isn’t she?

B: Is she? She didn’t tell me [ ].

B’s answer in this case can be understood as “She didn’t tell me she’s gettingmarried” As this clause is omitted, this sentence is considered as an example ofclausal ellipsis

Conjunction

Conjunction acts as a cohesive tie between clauses or sections of text insuch a way as to demonstrate a meaningful pattern between them, thoughconjunctive relations are not tied to any particular sequence in the expression.Therefore, amongst the cohesion forming devices within text, conjunction is theleast directly identifiable relation

Conjunctions can be classified according to four main categories: additive,adversative, causal and temporal

- Additive conjunctions act to structurally coordinate or link by adding to the

presupposed item and are signalled through “and, also, too, furthermore,additionally”, etc Additive conjunctions may also act to negate the presupposeditem and are signalled by “nor, and not, either, neither”, etc

She is beautiful And she is also intelligent.

- Adversative conjunctions act to indicate “contrary to expectation” and are

signalled by “yet, though, only, but, in fact, rather”, etc

They live near their aunt; however, they have never visited them.

- Causal conjunctions express “result, reason and purpose” and is signalled by “so,

then, for, because, for this reason, as a result, in this respect, etc.”

He ate so much Consequently, he became overweight

- Temporal conjunctions link by signalling sequence or time Some sample

temporal conjunctive signals are “then, next, after that, next day, until then, at thesame time, at this point”, etc

They have been building that bridge for 4 months Finally, they finish.

1.2.3.2 Lexical cohesion

Lexical cohesion differs from the other cohesive elements in text in that it isnon-grammatical Lexical cohesion refers to the “cohesive effect achieved by the

selection of vocabulary” We could say that it covers any instance in which the use

of a lexical item recalls the sense of an earlier one

Halliday and Hasan (1976) classify lexical cohesion into two maincategories: reiteration and collocation

Reiteration

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976) is “the repetition of a lexical item,

or the occurrence of a synonym of some kind, in the context of reference; that is,where the two occurrences have the same referent.” Reiteration is the repetition of

an earlier item, a synonym, a near synonym, a superordinate or a general word, but

it is not the same as personal reference, because it does not necessarily involve thesame identity

After the sequence:

I saw a boy in the garden The boy (repetition) was climbing a tree I was worried about the child (superordinate).The poor lad (synonym) was obviously not up to it The idiot (general word) was going to fall if he (pronoun) didn’t take care.

We could conclude by saying: “Boys can be so silly” This would be an

instance of reiteration, even though the two items would not be referring to the sameindividual(s)

Collocation

Collocation pertains to lexical items that are likely to be found togetherwithin the same text It occurs when a pair of words are not necessarily dependentupon the same semantic relationship but rather they tend to occur within the samelexical environment According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), collocation is

“cohesion that is achieved through the association of lexical items that regularly occur” In short, collocation refers to words that keep company with each other In

co-terms of structure, there are two types of collocation: grammatical collocation and

lexical collocation (Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

- Grammatical collocation often contains a lexical content word and grammar

function words, i.e a noun, an adjective, a verb plus a preposition Some main kinds

of grammatical collocation include V + Prep, Adj + Prep, N + Prep, Prep + N

- Lexical collocation is lexically restricted word pairs where only a subset of the

synonyms of the collocators can be used in the same lexical content Lexicalcollocation does not contain prepositions but consist of various combinations ofnouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs The following common patterns are involved:Adj + N, Quant + N, V + N, N + V, V + Adv, V + V, Adv + Adj, N + N

1.3 Persuasion in political speeches

Political speeches, the purpose of which is “primarily persuasion ratherthan information or entertainment” (Dedaić 2006: 700), can be seen as apurposeful interaction between the speaker and the audience, in which thecommunicative intention of the speaker is to manipulate the audience to acceptthe speaker’s views and support his/her suggestions In order to achieve his/hercommunicative purpose, the speaker uses discourse strategies and a variety ofrelated linguistic resources aimed at creating a credible representation ofhim/herself, aligning him/herself with the views of others, claiming solidarity withthe audience, modulating power relations and legitimising the proposed ideologyand course of action

Persuasion is an integral part of politics and a necessary component of thepursuit and exercise of power Political persuasion is a process in whichcommunicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or behaviorregarding a political issue through messages, in an atmosphere of free choice( Perloff 2003 , 34) As the field of political communication has grown, so too hasthe number of studies exploring the processes and effects of political persuasive

communication (→ Persuasion ) Political persuasion involves the application ofpersuasion principles to a context in which most individuals possess the seeminglyincompatible characteristics of harboring strong feelings about a host of issues, yetcaring precious little about the context in which these issues are played out.

To sum up, the first chapter of this study just provides some backgroundknowledge about Discourse and Cohesion in general All these will be discussed inmore detail at chapter three of this thesis

CHAPTER 2: AN OVERVIEW ON “UNITED STATES

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2012” AND “THE THIRD

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE”

In the previous chapter, the author has mentioned the theoretical background

of the study with some key information on discourse and discourse analysis So as

to complete the theoretical picture of this thesis, it is essential to take into account abrief understanding on the United States presidential election, 2012 in general andthe third presidential debate in particular

2.1 An overview on United States presidential election, 2012

Departing from the monarchical tradition of Britain, the founding fathers ofthe United States created a system in which the American people had the power andresponsibility to select their leader Under this new order, George Washington, thefirst U.S president, was elected in 1789 At the time, only white men who ownedproperty could vote, but the 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments to the Constitutionhave since expanded the right of suffrage to all citizens over 18 Taking place everyfour years, presidential campaigns and elections have evolved into a series offiercely fought, and sometimes controversial contests

The United States presidential election of 2012 was the 57th quadrennialpresidential election It was held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012 The Democraticnominee, incumbent President Barack Obama, and his running mate, Vice PresidentJoe Biden, were re-elected to a second term, defeating the Republican nominee,former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney, and his running mate,Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin

As the incumbent president, Obama secured the Democratic nomination with

no serious opposition The Republican Party was more fractured; Mitt Romney wasconsistently competitive in the polls, but faced challenges from a number of moreconservative contenders whose popularity each fluctuated, often besting Romney's.Romney effectively secured the nomination by early May as the economy

improved, albeit at a persistently laggard rate The campaign was marked by a sharprise in fundraising, including from new nominally independent Super PACs Thecampaigns focused heavily on domestic issues: debate centered largely aroundsound responses to the Great Recession in terms of economic recovery and jobcreation Other issues included long-term federal budget issues, the future of socialinsurance programs, and the Affordable Care Act Foreign policy was alsodiscussed including the phase-out of the Iraq War, the size of and spending on themilitary, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and appropriatecounteractions to terrorism.

Obama would go on to win a decisive victory over Romney, winning boththe popular vote and the electoral college, with 332 electoral votes to Romney's

206 He became the eleventh President and third Democrat to win a majority of thepopular vote more than once

2.2 United States presidential election debates, 2012 and the third presidential debate

The Commission on Presidential Debates held four debates during the lastweeks of the campaign: three presidential and one vice-presidential The majorissues debated were the economy and jobs, the federal budget deficit, taxation andspending, the future of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, healthcare reform,education, social issues, immigration, and foreign policy

Debate schedule:

- Wednesday, October 3: The first presidential debate took place at the University

of Denver in Denver, Colorado, moderated by Jim Lehrer

- Thursday, October 11: The vice-presidential debate took place at CentreCollege in Danville, Kentucky, moderated by Martha Raddatz

- Tuesday, October 16: The second presidential debate took place at HofstraUniversity in Hempstead, New York, moderated by Candy Crowley It had a town

hall format.

- Monday, October 22: The third presidential debate took place at LynnUniversity in Boca Raton, Florida, moderated by Bob Schieffer

The third presidential debate

The third presidential debate took place on Monday, October 22 at Florida'sLynn University, and was moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS News

Topics discussed included the recent attack on the U.S consulate inBenghazi, Libya, Iran's nuclear program, the Arab Spring, especially the Syriancivil war, relations with Israel, relations with Pakistan, the War on Terror, thewithdrawal of U.S troops from Afghanistan, the size and scope of the U.S military,and relations and trade with China, as well as the rise of that nation GovernorRomney also briefly broached the subject of the ongoing insurgency in Mali.Although the debate was supposed to strictly concern only foreign policy, thecandidates did manage to fit a few domestic policy issues, such as job creation, thefederal deficit, and education into the discussion

The format of this debate was identical to that of the first debate There weresix 15-minute segments, with the moderator introducing a topic and giving eachcandidate two minutes to respond, before allowing the candidates to discuss thetopics The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for adiscussion of the topic