Discursive Functioning of Parts of Speech in Political Parties’ Manifestos in Pakistani Election 2013

Abstract

The political discourse plays an essential role in shaping the perceptions and ideologies of people. The present research, titled ‘Discursive Functioning of Parts of Speech in Political Parties’ Manifestos’, focuses on the role of the discursive use of the parts of speech in Pakistani political parties’ manifestos, pertaining to the general election of 2013. The research is aimed at the linguistic analysis of the political discourse presented in the parties’ manifestos, focusing on parts of speech. The Van Dijk Socio Cognitive Model (1998) and Tajfel’s and Turner’s Social Identity Approach (1979) have served as the theoretical framework for this study. Corpus-based methodology was used for the Critical Discourse Analysis of the five political parties selected on the basis of popularity. The research revealed that all political parties studied used different parts of speech as a discursive strategy to frame positive images of their own party and negative images of the other parties. This was done by the parties in order to transform people’s ideology and identities in their own favor.