Linguistic Analysis as a Tool in the Deconstruction of Politically Biased Discourse during Elections: A Sociolinguistic Perspective

Abstract

The current study examines the importance of language in preserving and enhancing the development levers in a country. It high-lights the social reality, the meaning encoding power and sociocultural features of language. It sheds light as well on the critical role of language when a group of people passes through some particularly decisive events in their history that could result into social unease because of language misuse. Language is not a neutral instrument. It is a thousand ways biased, meaning oriented, tagged in a way as to serve a specific goal. The eclectic approach to this article paves the way to the use of linguistic analysis tools from semantics, pragmatics, systemic functional linguistics and discourse historical approach backgrounds. These theoretical frameworks set the gear to dig deep into the most often underestimated share that language definitely holds in nations’ sustainable development process. The findings are forceful to disclose the very constituents at word, clause, and paragraph levels that embed the hate elements in the selected corpus of political hate discourse. The research also brings in a contribution in terms of recommendation to political leaders in particular and society in general for an increased awareness of the very sensitive aspect of biased language especially when uttered by political leaders. Undoubtedly then, language is not just as a means of communication, but rather a critical asset and invaluable input for an effective achievement of sustainable development.