during the past few decades, impolitenessw has become a popular area of pragmatics that has been widely discussed over by pragmatics . although it was previously seen as the lack or failure of politeness. it is now considered to be puposeful, functional and worthy of study. conducted in support of this recent trend, this study aims to examine impoliteness in formal settings or more specifically, in the 2016 United States presidential debates. after reviewing different impoliteness models. Culpeper's (1996)impoliteness model, has been used as the theoretical framework of the study in order to detect the impoliteness strategies which are used in the United States presidential debates, to detect the most frequent ones and to see whether there is any statistically significant difference between the debaters regarding the use of impoliteness strategies. to this end, among three presidential debates, scheduled betwen Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump, as respectively, the Democrat and Republican nominees, three Iranian raters focused on the first one which lasted 90 minutes and held on September 26th. Culpeper's model, as one of the best and most tested models, including five superstrategies, two of which are completed bysome output strategies, includes 18 options altogether. the study was carried out from quantitative and qualitative angles and after the analysis of the data under investigation, out of 18 options, the instances of impoliteness fel into 13 categoreis: bald on record impoliteness; ignore, snub the otherl exclude the other from an activity; disassociate from the other; be disinterested, unconcerned, and unsympathetic; use inappropriate identity markers; seek disagreementl use taboo wordsl frighten; condescend, scorn or ridicule; put the other's indebtedness on record; sarcasm or mock politeness; and withhold politeness. also, condescend, scorn or ridicule; withhold politeness; and seek disagreement wererecognized as the mostrecurring impoliteness strateiges
