Refutation in presidential debate: Metadiscourse and co-occurring gestures

Political debates are central to the electoral process, offering candidates opportunities to persuade voters through both verbal and nonverbal means. Among these, refutation strategies play a pivotal role in challenging opponents and reinforcing credibility. While prior research has examined either metadiscourse or gestures in debates, relatively little attention has been given to how these modes operate in tandem. Grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics and multimodal discourse analysis, this study investigates how metadiscourse and gesture co-construct persuasive refutation in political communication. Specifically, it analyzes the multimodal strategies of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in the second 2024 U.S. presidential debate. The analysis revealed that Trump employed a greater number of metadiscourse markers overall, particularly text connectives and illocution markers, while Harris used them more selectively but strategically. Gesture analysis showed that metaphoric gestures were most frequent, with iconic gestures least used. Both candidates tended to align attitude markers with metaphoric gestures, text connectives with beat gestures, and illocution markers and code glosses with metaphoric gestures. The findings indicate that Harris and Trump adopted distinct pragmatic strategies, yet in both cases, speech and gesture functioned as integrated multimodal resources that reinforced the persuasiveness of their refutations. This study demonstrates the value of examining political debates through a multimodal lens, highlighting how verbal and nonverbal strategies converge to shape persuasive performance. • Examines multimodal refutation in the 2024 U.S. presidential debate. • Analyzes metadiscourse markers and co-occurring gestures systematically. • Trump favored emphatic connectives and illocution markers with gestures. • Harris used more code glosses with metaphoric gestures to clarify arguments. • Shows gesture-speech integration as key to persuasive political performance.