Compassionate Discourse as Space for Political Transformation in Tanzania

This chapter examines how Tanzanian Members of Parliament manipulate linguistic resources in the interests of political transformation in the country. Data from interactions by 65 MPs was collected from Hansards and parliament videos, and the views of 60 voters were obtained by means of a WhatsApp group. Analysis was conducted following a triangulation of discourse and identity construction (Bamberg, W., de Fina, A., and Schiffrin, D. (2011). Discourse and Identity Construction, in Schwartz, S. J; Luyckx, K; Vignoles, V.L (2011) Handbook of Identity Theory and Research. New York: Springer.), positioning (Moghaddam and Harre, Words of Conflict, Words of War: How the Language We Use in Political Processes Sparks Fighting, Praeger, 2010) and systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, An Introduction to Functional Grammar, Edward Arnold, 1985). Findings show that politicians make it appear that they are the only ones in control of the electorate’s destiny, sometimes speaking as sufferers, which makes them seem to ‘belong’ to the electorate. More importantly, while the closeness being created produces the desired effects of being liked, politicians do not see and use this transformative opportunity beyond the vote. Since the majority of voters (42 of 60 people) like politicians who use language to their liking, this opportunity could be more profitably used by these representatives for political transformation.