Assignment

Subject: Research Methodology

Topic: Analysis of the political language used by Imran Khan during long March.

Submitted by: Tajammul Hussain

Submitted to: Mam Dr. Ghazala Kausar

Class: Bs English

Section: 4C

Roll No: SM-21079

Research Question

Q.no 1. What kind of language is used during long march?

Q.no 2. How does the language engage the people during long march?

Q.no.3. How can a language be helpful to achieve political objectives during long march?

Research objective

1) To highlight the role of language in making political speeches.

2) To find the importance of language which is used in long march for election.
3) To find the role of language to engage the people during long march.
Literature Review

Politicians have long engaged in marketing themselves by employing distinct speaking styles to
signal social standing, competence, or a shared background with their audience. What effect
does this use of different language appeals have on voter opinion? Utilizing a survey
experiment in Thailand, the researcher set the hypotheses about the effect of language on
respondent opinions. Relying on three distinct treatments, a formal language register, an
informal language register, and an ethnic language, they demonstrate the multiple effects of
language on political appeal. The use of a formal register has mixed effects, signaling both high
education as well as preparation for national office while also creating social distance between
the speaker and audience. An informal register and the ethnic tongue both signal kinship ties to
listeners, with the ethnic tongue having a much more profound effect. The results also show
that an ethnic overture has greater electoral appeal than formal speech. These findings
highlight the causal effect language has in shaping political opinions and illustrate the varied
impacts of linguistic hierarchies on political appeal.

In short, people who heard the formal speech felt the candidate was prepared to lead the
country, but they didn’t want to vote for him. People who heard the lower register of speech
felt much more kinship to the speaker. And finally, respondents who heard the ethnic language
felt like the candidate was not prepared to lead, but they were more likely to say they would
vote for him. Among the three types of speech, the ethnic tongue had the most forceful effect
on political opinions. In sum, politicians, by using different speaking patterns, influence people’s
opinions and can shape support for their candidacy. According to the American Community
Survey, an annual sample-based survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, only 239 million
people aged five and older speak English at home in the US. This means that approximately 91
million people in this country speak a language other than English in the home, with the Spanish
language accounting for 41 million people. With such a large percentage of population natively
speaking a language other than English, many people remain at a disadvantage when it comes to
accessibility to pertinent voting information and resources about running for office.
The article “The Language Barrier in the Voting Booth” by Terry Ao Minnis and Adam Ambrogi
identified voters in Nevada who struggled with language when it came to voting and found that
42 percent of the voters who identified as speaking a language other than English at home
struggled with the voting process. There were many respondents who needed assistance in
Spanish to fully understand the process and their options. Not all voting locations, however, had
this essential help available to voters. Those who primarily speak a language other than English
often face hurdles at the polls and may not be able to communicate their needs clearly. Some
voters may even be under the assumptions that their difficulty with the English language would
make them ineligible to vote. The Voting Rights Act (VRA) fights to ensure there is language
assistance for language-minority voters, and poll administrators should ensure that all poll
workers are aware of this right and are trained in how to assist voters with language needs.

Political Scientist Noam Chomsky explains in his book Language and Politics exactly how words
are the currency of power in elections. Communication and speechwriting are the keys to
swaying voters, and in Democracy, the system calls for the people to buy in to what politicians
are saying in their campaign speeches. Today, words are incredibly important in politics, given
the abundance of false information available to voters on the internet. When President Donald
Trump was elected in 2016, the term ‘alternative facts’ became popular, widely to discredit
what different news outlets were reporting about various scandals surrounding the new
administration. Brexit Language: Rhetoric and language also prove incredibly important in
Europe, where we see recent rises in right-wing, populist sentiment. According to former BBC
director general Mark Thompson, language is the cornerstone of politics and democracy, and
when it deteriorates, we lose a lot more than just nice speeches. Historically, from the fall of
Rome to the rise of authoritarianism, the breakdown of a common, civil way to communicate
leads to the breakdown of society as a whole. The breakdown in today’s western society began
in 2016, when we saw people like Donald Trump in the United States, Marine Le Pen in France,
the entire ‘Brexit’ phenomenon, as well as far right groups in Austria, and strange coalitions in
Italy, for example. The complete inability to communicate across political lines has left western
societies more divided than ever, so much so that many people from opposite sides of the
spectrum have simply stopped listening to anything from the other side.
Ricks, Jacob. (2020). The Effect of Language on Political Appeal: Results from a Survey
Experiment in Thailand. Political Behavior. 42. 10.1007/s11109-018-9487-z.
O’Barr, W. (2019). 1. THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE AND POLITICS. In W. O’Barr (Ed.), Language
and Politics (pp. 1-28). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.

The Journal of Politics Vol. 73, No. 1 (Jan. 14, 2011), pp. 125-139 (15 pages) university of
Chicago

https://polsci.umass.edu/research/clusters/language-and-politics

Chomsky, N. (2004). Language and politics. AK Press.

Joseph, J. E. (2006). Language and politics. Edinburgh University Press.

Rahman, T. (1995). Language and politics in a Pakistan province: The Sindhi language movement. Asian
Survey, 35(11), 1005-1016.

Obeng, S. G. (1997). Language and politics: Indirectness in political discourse. Discourse & Society, 8(1),
49-83.

Dunmire, P. L. (2012). Political discourse analysis: Exploring the language of politics and the politics of
language. Language and Linguistics Compass, 6(11), 735-751.

Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English language.