Imran Khan’s Political Speech at Shoukat Khanam Hospital, Lahore Before General Election 2013: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to discover, the way politicians proliferate their political dogma through political communication by means of tactful language. This article critical analyzes Imran Khan’s speech who is the Chairman of Tehreek-e-Insaaf which is one of the major parties in Pakistan politics. Delivering his speech two days before the General Election 2012 in Pakistan, he attempts revealing the dogmas which were functioning behind his political speech. Further, it has been reconnoitered how diverse linguistic modus operandi have been applied to accomplish political purposes. Qualitative method has been used and data has been collected from the secondary like research article of Uzma Khalil’s (2017) article on Imran Khan’s speech 2012. Textual analysis and explanatory methods has been used for data analysis following Fairclough CDA framework. Fairclough (1995) analytical framework is employed to analyze the speech, besides other technical tool are also used like words choice, repetition, positive self-representation and negative representation, these are used to represent, in which manner specific words, phrases and sentences carry power to indicate and change the political and peculiar ideas of the people. Results suggest, politicians employ explicit linguistics tactics to induce targeted people to follow their secreted schema. Hence, different language codes, clues and symbols of political discourse should be discovered so that mediocre individuals can effortlessly comprehend their views.