Face Threatening Acts in Political Discourse: A Case of the Building Bridges Initiative in Kenya

Abstract

Cut-throat competitions have, in recent times, characterised Kenyan politics. Political contestants use language in these competitions. How well these politicians package and sell their agenda depends on their choice of words and complementary paralinguistic features. Political contenders fend off opposition through utterances hence making politics largely a game of words. In a multiparty and multi-ethnic state like Kenya, every political party and ethnic group always have differing interests at a given time, often sparking bitter exchanges between politicians from different camps. Individuals, activists, activist groups, and commissions have often accused the political class of hate speech and insensitive language. This study, alive to the aforementioned, is an attempt at a pragmatic examination of the verbal communication of the Kenyan political class as they differ in ideas over a highly contested matter of national political interest, in this case, the Building Bridges Initiative (henceforth BBI). The study benefits from Brown's and Levinson's (1987) Politeness. Austin's (1962) Speech Acts Theory complements politeness theory. The study adopts an analytical research design of the discourse of five politicians purposively sampled from two events where the matters of BBI issues were the main agenda of discussion. Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) were elicited and explained analytically from the speaker's talks. A descriptive qualitative research technique is used in the analysis of data. The study finds that the political class in Kenya employs both positive and negative FTAs proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) to achieve means to their ends. This study concludes that several FTAs are employed in political discourse in Kenya, and these FTAs reinforce the effectiveness of communication on such platforms.