Political Discourse Analysis : A Case Study of 2014 Andhra Pradesh State Assembly Election of Interpersonal Speech Choices

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 20th century, people have started studying the correlation between language and culture. They observed how language is used in discourses to establish power relations in the society. Eggins (2004) found that the link between language and the choice made by the speaker in the exchange enable us to see speakers making meaning about interpersonal: the extent of their intimacy, their level of familiarity with each other and their attitudes and judgments. In political speeches, the speaker uses language to persuade the voters, influence their perceptions and build a positive interpersonal identity. Keeping in mind this result-oriented attempt by the speakers, Van Dijk and others (1997) describe discourse as political when it has a direct functional role as a form of political action in the political process. In this paper, we will look at four such speeches given by notable politicians from both winning and losing parties during the campaign of Andhra Pradesh State Assembly elections of 2014 and closely observe the linguistic choices made at the lexical and semantic levels. By a contrastive analysis of the speeches of winning and losing parties, we can identify the linguistic features which contribute to the outcome.