Modal Verbs and Ideological Positioning in the General Election Manifestos of Pakistani Political Parties: A Critical Stylistic Approach

Abstract

The present study examines the linguistic resource of modality in the 2018 general election manifestos of four major political parties, namely, the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). The analysis focuses on how these political parties position themselves and their opponents in their 2018 general election manifestos through the strategic use of modality, primarily expressed through modal verbs. The study further investigates how these political parties articulate obligations, commitments, probabilities, and assumptions, etc., through modality. The data are examined through a mixed-methods mode of inquiry combining corpus tools Antconc (4.3.1) and the textual-conceptual function of hypothesising from the Critical Stylistic framework proposed by Jefferies (2014). The frequency and distribution patterns of modality identified through corpus tools are rendered to a deeper qualitative analysis to uncover the ideological meanings encoded through modality. The results of the study demonstrate a noticeable variation in the frequency and preferred types of modal verbs across the selected political parties, with the dominant use of the modal verbs ‘will & would’. The qualitative interpretation of these modal verbs indicates their strategic use to project a positive self-image and highlights the failures and weaknesses of their political rivals. Overall, the study demonstrates the effectiveness of a mixed-methods approach to uncover ideological patterns in political texts and contributes to the growing scholarship on Pakistani political discourse.