ABSTRACT
In this chapter I look at politics and what this term might mean. I take a broad definition of politics and thus I examine political speeches, the politics of families as well as the politics we find in everyday conversations and in new media. We have already encountered the concept of ideology (Chapters 1 and 2) but it can be a difficult concept to fully understand. It is also important to remember that ideology and power are enacted through specific choices made in language; so ideology will be a point of discussion in relation to the issues in this chapter too. While we can often tell where someone’s ideas and comments are ‘coming from’, in this chapter I introduce some linguistic tools that help us to be more specific about how persuasion works and how power relations are built and sustained.
