POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN PAKISTANI POLITICS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE BUDGETARY SPEECH OF MNA NOOR ALAM KHAN (2023)

Abstract

Politeness in politics is a strategic communicative tool that plays a central role in shaping public opinion, building the relation of power, and negotiating social identities. This study examines the politeness strategies in Pakistani political discourse by analyzing the budgetary speech of MNA Noor Alam Khan delivered on 15 February 2023 during the mini-budget session. The research design is descriptive-qualitative because the data is in the form of spoken political discourse. The speech is taken from online video available on YouTube platform, it is transcribed and analyzed qualitatively on the basis of the Politeness Theory by Brown and Levinson (1987). Twelve utterances were selected and analyzed in order to determine the application of bald-on-record, positive politeness, negative politeness and off-record strategies. The findings show that the most commonly used strategies were the positive politeness and the bald on record which can be explained by the dual intention of the speaker to show his solidarity with the people and at the same time provide direct and sharp criticism of the government policies. Negative politeness and off-record strategies were not so common and were mostly applied in situations where there were sensitive accusations and indirect criticism. Overall, the result indicates that politeness strategies in Pakistani parliamentary speech are meaningful pragmatic means of dealing with face-threatening behavior, the process of political identity formation, persuasive and rhetorical goals.