Research in Language, 2019, vol. 17:1 DOI: 10.2478/rela-2019-0002 1 A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN TELEVISED PRE-ELECTION DEBATES IN POLAND AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA MARTIN HINTON University of Łódź, Poland martin.hinton@uni.lodz.pl AGNIESZKA BUDZYŃSKA-DACA University of Warsaw, Poland a.budzynska@uw.edu.pl Abstract This paper combines quantitative and qualitative methodologies to study the persuasive strategies employed by candidates taking part in televised pre-election debates in Poland and the United States between 1995 and 2016. First, the authors identify the key strategies and calculate the frequency with which they are used by individual candidates. This allows for numerical comparisons between politicians in the two polities, as well as between winners and losers, and candidates of the right and the left politically. These statistical results led the authors to look more closely at the individual styles of two contrasting debaters. We conclude that the rhetorical landscape of political communication does not differ greatly between the two countries; although the data suggest noticeable differences in the approach of political parties and between individuals. Keywords: Persuasion, political communication, political dialogue, rhetoric, debates. 1. Introduction The research presented in this paper investigates differences in the political communication strategies of candidates running for the highest government office, the presidency and premiership, in the United States of America and Poland. The aim is to identify and compare typical argument strategies found in the persuasive speeches of American and Polish politicians directed at the public during election campaigns. The analysis is performed on material from televised election debates, a type of pre-election communication which has a particular importance: not only through the responses of those who watch the broadcast, but also because the impact of candidates in these debates is measured in opinion polls, the results of which are widely publicised and reach those who did not experience the performances at first hand. No other type of communication used