Acclaims, Attacks, Defenses: Modality Analysis of Ma Ying-jeou's 2012 Taiwan Presidential Debates Discourse.

Ma Ying-jeou’s landslide victory in the 2008 Taiwan Presidential Election marked Taiwan’s second democratic transfer of power (with the first one taking place in 2000) and started a new era in cross-Strait relations. Nevertheless, due to the KMT government’s performance fell short of the people’s expectations during Ma’s governance, Ma encountered a neck-and-neck challenge in his second term presidential election. This chapter aims to adopt a Critical Discourse Analysis approach of modality, and take reference of Benoit’s functional approach to investigate Ma Ying-jeou’s deliberate and selective use of modal verbs in the 2012 Taiwan televised presidential debates to acclaim, attack and defend. This modality analysis reveals his employment of negative and positive linguistic choices in addressing his opponents’ arguments and casting doubt on his key opponent as well as depicting his leadership and character traits and conveying his high degree of commitment to gain the support of the electorate.