Language of politics cannot be separated from the politics of language. The notion of "Political Discourse" does not remain limited to the "institutional" field of politics (e.g. parliamentary discourse, election campaigns, party programmes, speeches, etc.) but opens to all linguistic manifestations that may be considered to be political, provided that it is convincingly argued what makes them "political". In order to illuminate new and old forms of political discourses inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives and elaborated linguistic methodologies have to complement each other.

1. The Language of Politics
Dr Shamim Ali

2. The Language of Politics
 Politics is concerned with power: the power
to make decisions, to control resources, to
control other people’s behavior, and to
control their values.
 What are the features of language used by
politicians?
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3. Language as Thought Control
 Why do politicians choose their words
carefully?
They believe implicitly in linguistic
relativity. They believe in the power of
language to influence thought
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4. The Language of Politics
1.Presupposition.
2.Implicature
3.Metaphor
4.Euphemism
5.The ‘rule of three’
6.Structural parallelism
7.Dexies
8.Bushism
9. Political Correctness
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5. .
1.Presupposition
 Presuppositions - the meaning of the word
'presuppose' is to 'assume beforehand; involve, imply' -
represent some of the most powerful of language
patterns. They are in common, everyday use by all of
us and are built into the structure of the English
language
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6. Presuppositions
 Presuppositions may be 'fair and uncontroversial' -
based upon knowledge which is common to all parties
privy to a communication, or 'unfair', 'counterfeit' or
'controversial' - made upon the basis of covert
knowledge by a communicator with a hidden agenda.
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7. a)True Presupposition
It seems to me that a true presupposition is based on an
unconsidered assumption by the encoder. That
assumption is that the decoder will draw the same
suppositions from the non-asserted elements of a
message as the encoder holds
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8. b)The Unfair Presupposition
The unfair or premeditated form of presupposition can
be defined as that used by a speaker to get the listener
to presuppose (i.e. assume to be true, as a matter of
fact) spurious assertions.
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9. c)Presuppositions in Use
 Presuppositions in Questions
 Presuppositions in Addresses to Groups
 Presuppositions in Advertising
 Presuppositions in One to One Encounters
 Assumptions and their Refutation
 Courtroom
 Confrontational debates - political or otherwise
 Police interviews
 Advertising
 Political broadcasts
 Sales' situations
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10. 2.Implicature
 Implicature is a technical term in the pragmatics subfield
of linguistics, coined by H. P. Grice, which refers to what is
suggested in an utterance, even though neither expressed
nor strictly implied the utterance.
 Paul Grice identified four types of general conversational
implicature:
 Maxim of Manner
 Maxim of Relation
 Maxim of Quantity
 Maxim ofQuality
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11. a)Maxim of Manner: Clarity
 Avoid obscurity of expression.
("Eschew obfuscation")
Obfuscation (or beclouding) is the hiding of intended
meaning in communication, making communication
confusing, wilfully ambiguous, and harder to interpret
 Avoid ambiguity.
 Be brief
 Be orderly
 When one tries to be as clear, as brief, and as orderly as one
can in what one says, and where one avoids obscurity and
ambiguity.
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12. b)Maxim of Relation: Relevance
 Be relevant
 How to allow for the fact that subjects of conversations
are legitimately changed.
 where one tries to be relevant, and says things that are
pertinent to the discussion
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13. c)Maxim of Quantity: Information
 Make your contribution as informative as is required
for the current purposes of the exchange.
 Do not make your contribution more informative than
is required.
 Where one tries to be as informative as one possibly
can, and gives as much information as is needed, and
no more.
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14. d)Maxim of Quality: Truth
 Do not say what you believe to be false.
 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
 Where one tries to be truthful, and does not give
information that is false or that is not supported by
evidence
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15. 3.Metaphors
 Combine a metaphor with another figure of style!
 Make the audience aware of a metaphor!
 Combine compatible metaphors
 Elaborate metaphorical mappings
 Expand metaphorical
 Create novel mappings
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16. 4.Euphemism
 A euphemism is the substitution of a mild,
inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for
another more frank expression that might offend or
otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the
audience.
 Euphemism is an inoffensive expression that is
substituted for one that is considered offensive. In
other words, the communication of painful or hurtful
concepts using softer words is known as euphemism.
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17. Example of Euphemsim
 Words can signal strongly our attitudes to fundamental
things; debates that may appear to be about words can
actually be about values and world view. Whichever word is
chosen may also affect people's perception of the world and
of themselves." Therefore, when teachers tell students that
they have 'poor ability' in their studies, they may feel that
they are never likely to improve and that there is no room
for improvement and they may ask themselves: “Why
bother when I can’t improve anymore?”. But when teachers
tell students that they have 'low attainment', they may feel
they would do much, much better if they work harder.
Thus, the word 'attainment' here is a euphemism to cover
up an unacceptable fact with a 'prettier word'.
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18. 4.1 Categorization
 Abstractions and ambiguities (it for excrement, going to
the other side for death, do it or come together in reference
to a , tired and emotional
 Indirections (behind, unmentionables)
 Mispronunciation (goldarnit, dadgummit, effing c, freakin,
be-atch, minced oath)
 Litotes or reserved understatement (not exactly thin for
"fat", not completely truthful for "lied", not unlike cheating
for "an instance of cheating")
 Changing nouns to modifiers
 Slang,
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19. 5.Rule of Three
 The rule of three is powerful speechwriting
technique that you should learn, practice, and master
 Speechwriting is, of course, part of every culture.
Examples of the Rule of Three can be found in some of
the most famous speeches ever delivered
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20. 5.1Examples of the Rule of Three
 Julius Caesar
 “Veni, vidi, vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered)
 Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
 “Friends, Romans, Countrymen. Lend me your ears.“
 Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
 “We can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can
not hallow — this ground.“
 Government of the people, by the people, for the people“
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21. Examples of the Rule of Three
 General MacArthur, West Point Address, 1962
 “Duty, Honor, Country” [repeated several times in the
speech]
 Barack Obama, Inaugural Speech
 “we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin
again the work of remaking America“
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22. 5.2 Rhetorical Devices — Rule of
Three
a)Hendiatris
A hendiatris is a figure of speech where three
successive words are used to express a central idea.
 Examples of hendiatris include:
“Veni, vidi, vici.” [Julius Caesar]
“Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité“ [French motto]
“Citius, Altius, Fortius” [Olympic motto]
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23. Rhetorical Devices — Rule of Three
 Tricolon
 A tricolon is a series of three parallel elements
(words or phrases). In a strict tricolon, the elements
have the same length but this condition is often put
aside.
 Examples of tricola include:
 “Veni, vidi, vici.” [Julius Caesar]
 “Be sincere, be brief, be seated.” [Advice for speakers
from Franklin D. Roosevelt]
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24. 5.3 Western Culture and the Rule
of Three
 Christianity
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
 Heaven, hell, and purgatory
 Three Wise Men with their gold, frankincense, and myrrh
 Movies & Books
 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
 Superman’s “Truth, Justice, and the American Way“
 Nursery rhymes such as the Three Little Pigs or Goldilocks and
the Three Bears
 In a more general sense, there is the allure of trilogies as with
Indiana Jones, The Godfather, The Matrix, Star Wars, and
many others.
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25. Western Culture and the Rule of
Three
 Politics
 U.S. Branches of Government: Executive, Judicial, and
Legislative
 U.S. Declaration of Independence: “Life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness”
 French motto: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
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26. 6.Parallelism
 It is when elements of a sentence “have the same
weight and are often the same part of speech. Noun,
noun, noun. Check. Adjective, adjective, adjective.
Yep. Verb, verb, verb. Parallelism is all about equality;
parallelism creates a nice rhythm in your sentence
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27. 6.1 Obama’s Inaugural Speech
Examples of Parallelism
 Here are but some of them (in italics):
 My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task
before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful
of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.
 Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shattered.
 Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of
things …
 They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual
ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or
wealth or faction. [There is a double parallelism here. Do you
see it?]
 But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests
and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely
passed.
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28. 7.Bushisms
 Bushisms are unconventional words, phrases,
pronunciations, malapropisms, and semantic or
linguistic errors that have occurred in the public
speaking of former President of the United States
George W. Bush and, much less notably, of his father,
George H. W. Bush.The term has become part of
popular folklore and is the basis of a number of
websites and published books. It is often used to
caricature the two presidents. Common characteristics
include malapropisms, the creation of neologisms,
spoonerisms, stunt words and grammatically incorrect
subject-verb agreement
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29. 7.1 Neologisms
 Neologisms as a linguistic phenomenon can be seen
from different aspects: time (synchronic),
geographical, social and communicative.
 Neologisms can be either loan words in the form of
direct loans and loan translations, or newly coined
terms, either morphologically new words or by giving
existing words a new semantic content
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30. 7.2 A Spoonerism
 A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on
words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or
morphemes are switched (see metathesis). It is named after
the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930),
Warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously
prone to this tendency.A spoonerism is also known as a
marrowsky, after a Polish count who suffered from the
same impediment. While spoonerisms are commonly
heard as slips of the tongue resulting from unintentionally
getting one's words in a tangle, they can also be used
intentionally as a play on words. In some cultures,
spoonerisms are used as a rhyme form used in poetry
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31. 7.2.1Examples of Spoonerism
 "Three cheers for our queer old dean!" (dear old queen,
referring to Queen Victoria)
 "The Lord is a shoving leopard." (a loving shepherd)
 "A blushing crow." (crushing blow)
 "A well-boiled icicle" (well-oiled bicycle)
 "You were fighting a liar in the quadrangle." (lighting a fire)
 "Is the bean dizzy?" (dean busy)
 "Someone is occupewing my pie. Please sew me to another
sheet." (occupying my pew...show me to another seat)
 "You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You have tasted a
whole worm. Please leave Oxford on the next town drain."
(missed...history, wasted...term, down train)
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32. 7.3 A Stunt Words
 It is created to produce a special effect, or to attract
attention.
 Some stunt words are Portmanteau words
 portmanteau word is a blend of two (or more) words
or morphemes into one new word.A portmanteau
word typically combines both sounds and meanings,
as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog.More
generally, it may refer to any term or phrase that
combines two or more meanings. In linguistics, a
portmanteau is defined as a single morph which
represents two or more morphemes
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33. 8.Deixis
 In linguistics, deixis refers to the phenomenon
wherein understanding the meaning of certain words
and phrases in an utterance requires contextual
information. Words are deictic if their semantic
meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning
varies depending on time and/or place. Words or
phrases that require contextual information to convey
any meaning – for example, English pronouns – are
deictic. Deixis is closely related to both indexicality
and anaphora
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34. 8.1 Indexicality
 Indexical behavior or utterance points to (or indicates)
some state of affairs. For example, I refers to whoever is
speaking; now refers to the time at which that word is
uttered; and here refers to the place of utterance. For
Charles Sanders Peirce, indexicality is one of three sign
modalities (see further down), and is a phenomenon far
broader than language; that which, independently of
interpretation, points to something — such as smoke (an
index of fire) or a pointing finger — works indexically for
interpretation. Social indexicality in the human realm has
been regarded as including any sign (clothing, speech
variety, table manners) that points to, and helps create,
social identity
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35. 8.2 Anaphora
 Anaphora is an important concept for different reasons
and on different levels. First, anaphora indicates "how
discourse is constructed and maintained". Second, on
the level of the sentence, anaphora binds different
syntactical elements together. Third, in computational
linguistics anaphora presents a challenge to natural
language processing, since the identification of the
reference can be challenging. Fourth, anaphora "tells
us some things about how language is understood, and
processed", which is relevant to fields of linguistics
interested in cognitive psychology
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36. 9. Political Correctness
 Political Correctness is a trend that wants to make
everything fair, equal and just to all by suppressing
thought, speech and practice in order to achieve that
goal. In recent years, there has been a political and
social movement to make some words in a language
more neutral and less biased. Words like ‘passed away’
is used instead of ‘die’ or ‘disabled’ instead of
‘handicapped’
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37. Politics is not just Institutions
 Politics happens on the streets
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