Political Discourse Analysis: A Case Study of Code Mixing and Code Switching in Political Speeches Dama Sravani, Lalitha Kameswari, Radhika Mamidi Language Technologies Research Centre International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad, Telangana, India {dama.sravani, v.a.lalitha}@research.iiit.ac.in
[email protected] Abstract when interacting with members of other communi- ties and with tourists, the residents would use the Political discourse is one of the most interest- standard dialect. ing data to study power relations in the frame- work of Critical Discourse Analysis. With Foster et al.(1981) states that language is not the increase in the modes of textual and spo- neutral or universal in a political context. Language ken forms of communication, politicians use is used to reflect many historical, cultural and so- language and linguistic mechanisms that con- cial identities associated with the politician. In a tribute significantly in building their relation- multilingual country like India, CM and CS are a ship with people, especially in a multilingual norm. They not only reflect a person’s association country like India with many political parties with more than one language or a dialect, but also with different ideologies. This paper analy- conveys their social identity in a given context. In ses code-mixing and code-switching in Telugu political speeches to determine the factors re- this paper, our aim is to look at CM and CS as two sponsible for their usage levels in various so- distinctive techniques used for political gain. cial settings and communicative contexts. We The matrix language we have chosen to study also compile a detailed set of rules captur- these phenomena is Telugu, a South-Central Dra- ing dialectal variations between Standard and vidian language predominantly spoken in India’s Telangana dialects of Telugu.