An analysis of discourse and linguistic features of television-mediated political campaign advertisements in the Philippines

A television-mediated political campaign advertisement (TPCA) is a type of political discourse that remains under-explored. Its multidisciplinary nature renders an added complexity that entails a thorough examination of its features that are reflective of the disciplines of linguistics, politics, advertising, and media. The study aims to describe the TPCA not only as a linguistic expression, but also as a type of discourse that involves action and interaction in society. The corpus of the study consists of sixty (60) TPCAs that were recorded during the campaign period of the senatorial elections held in the Philippines on May 14, 2007. A discourse and linguistic analysis of the TPCAs was conducted to address the multi-modal nature of the discourse and correlate form and function. The discourse analysis has two phases: the first phase provides a description of the global patterns and their functions, while the second phase presents an analysis of the speech acts performed in utterances. The linguistic analysis provides an examination of the linguistic features such as the use of personal pronouns, politeness marker po, address forms, codeswitching and word play. The study shows that the TPCAs are constitutive of interactive frames. The frames encapsulate the motivated sequences of messages that help realize the overall goal of persuasion. The sketched global structure of the TPCA reveals two indispensable motivated sequences: drawing attention and offering solutions to the electorate. The structure reflects the employment of strategies such as the use of songs and banter to serve as the attention-getting devices, while the positive assertions of the candidates achievements and qualities fulfill the motive of offering solutions. In terms of the speech iii acts performed by the utterances, the study reveals the predominance of representatives, followed by directives. The positive assertions of the candidates abilities and performance reinforce the identified obligatory structures of th