Identity Construction through Naming andDescribing: A Critical Stylistic Analysis of Major Political Party Manifestos inPakistan’s 2018 General Elections

Abstract

The relationship between political language and meaning-making has been a central concern in linguistics and discourse studies. Building on this tradition, Jeffries’ Critical Stylistics offers a systematic framework that connects theoretical insights with close textual analysis at the lexical and grammatical levels. This study investigates how political identities are constructed in the 2018 general election manifestos of three major Pakistani political parties: Pakistan Muslim League (N), Pakistan People’s Party, and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, through the textu l-co ceptual function Naming and Describing. Adopting a mixed-method approach, the study combines qualitative stylistic analysis with descriptive frequency-based measures to examine patterns of noun choice, nominal modification, and nominalisation. The findings indicate that ideologically salient nominal references are strategically employed to foreground positive self representation while comparatively limiting representations of political rivals. Although all three parties privilege self-oriented naming practices, variation is observed in the extent and distribution of these strategies across manifestos. The study demonstrates the analytical value of Critical Stylistics for examining political texts in thePakistani context and provides a replicable framework for future research on identity construction across electoral periods.