The Metaphors of Populism: How Populist Political Leaders Use Specific Linguistic Tropes, Emotive Vocabulary, and Binary Oppositions in Modern Political Campaigns in Pakistan

Abstract

In this qualitative research, the rhetorical, metaphorical and linguistic strategies used by populist political leaders to create political reality, evoke public emotions and polarise public discourse during contemporary political campaigns in Pakistan are discussed. Although politics in Pakistan has institutional dynamics, electoral mechanisms, socio-economic factors, and others, it has yet to fully examine the cognitive and linguistic structures that constitute the basis of populist persuasion. This paper is based on a qualitative analysis of campaign discourse texts, which involves the analysis of official campaign speech transcripts, party manifestos, televised political speeches and party and official digital media archives of major political campaigns in Pakistan, and is grounded in Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The analysis shows that these three are the main linguistic strategies used in populist texts: (one) the use of strong metaphorical frames (medical, spatial-architectural, socio-religious, anti-colonial); (two) the creation of moralized dichotomy and contrast between a virtuous and a victimized collective (awaam) and a corrupt and treasonous elite (chors/dakoos); and (three) the use of high-arousal emotive vocabulary, which evokes feelings of collective betrayal, urgent crisis, national humiliation, and moral indignation. The results show that such linguistic resources will make difficult structural and economic problems look like attractive, emotional stories, and thus establish an affective relationship between the leader and the masses. In conclusion the paper states that these rhetorical tactics prove effective in mobilizing mass electorate around the elections, but they considerably contribute to hyper-polarization, undermine deliberate democratic consensus and limit the process of compromise-based governance in Pakistan's evolving democratic context.

The keywords: Populism, Political Metaphors, Critical Discourse Analysis, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Pakistani Politics, Political Communication, Binary Oppositions, Emotive Vocabulary, Secondary Source Analysis.