Invectives of Language in Ghanaian and Zimbabwean Political Discourse: Participatory Politics and Social Media

Language remains one of the major channels of communication in human activities. Whether through verbal or non-verbal semiotic symbols or rituals, humans have communicated their aspirations across generations—albeit not without attending contestations. Since the democratisation processes in several African countries, including Ghana and Zimbabwe, young men and women have deployed language to negotiate for political transformations in their respective jurisdictions. Nevertheless, the ruling elites have similarly politicized language and the channels of communication, resulting in the criminalization of freedom of expression as well as blocking the possibility of political transformation. In the case of both Ghana and Zimbabwe, those in the corridors of political power have politicized and criminalized the use of invectives as part of the elites shielding themselves from political critique and concurrent transformational politics. In this chapter, therefore, we discuss the dialectics of language and languaging embedded in contemporary political discourses, and further interrogate the extent to which young people in Ghana and Zimbabwe are leveraging social media to channel their use of invectives as part of instigating transformational politics. The chapter is interested in assessing the pros and cons of the use of invectives as a strategy for transformational politics. Analyzing social media data, particularly on X, the chapter applies theories of state formation, socio-semiotics and transformational politics—all routinized in contextual analysis—to respond to the question: To what extent does young people’s use of invectives affect transformational politics in present-day Ghana and Zimbabwe? The study discovered that youth deployment of invectives does not necessarily yield any lasting transformational politics. It rather reconfigures elites’ leveraging of digital dictatorship to further strengthen their grips over power.