Election manifestos and the performance of main political parties in the 13th Malaysian General Election – A linguistic analysis

A manifesto is a written statement specifically designed during a country’s election to address and inform the public regarding a political party’s philosophy, policies and action plans. In so doing, a manifesto is seen as a means to reach potential voters by the political party. As such the very construction of a manifesto is crucial in influencing the electoral fate of any contesting political parties. This study analyses the linguistics of the Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat manifestos in the 13th GE of 2013 premised, in particular, on the theoretical framework of ‘language as a means in social life’ . The focus was to examine how linguistics was capitalized and utilized in producing a manifesto that can serve and achieve a particular political interest and goal. A set of linguistic analyses was conducted, namely, the descriptive, the interpretative and the critical based on linear and non-linear aspects of texts discourse . Descriptive analysis explains micro textual features such as grammar, lexical and modality. In contrast, interpretative analysis reconstructs manifesto in macro terms such as the superstructure, inter-discursivity and non–linear aspects. Critical analysis then concludes by comparing simultaneously both micro- and macrofeatures of the manifestos by taking into account their relationships to the electoral performance of the political parties involved in the Malaysian 2013 GE.