ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we consider the importance of language in political contexts. We begin by defining politics, making clear its connection to both ideology and persuasion. We then explore linguistic features that are deployed in order to persuade audiences. These techniques are common across all kinds of persuasive texts, but they are generally easy to find in arguments that are clearly political. The linguistic tools of repetition and parallelism, presupposition and metaphor are introduced by taking examples from the manifesto of a global political movement. These tools will help us see how we are persuaded to accept particular ideologies. To further understand how these tools work, we then consider the language of war using the concepts of euphemism and dysphemism. This allows us to consider the consequences of representational choices. War is clearly political, and may also feel exceptional, rather distant from the everyday for many people. Considering the ideologies communicated by children’s toys shows how this division breaks down.
