The Language of AFD

A Politolinguistic Study Based on Televised Debates

Abstract

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is a young German right-wing party, whose success at the last federal election 2017 was considered unexpected. One of the reasons for this result lies certainly in the language they resort to. Among the many linguistic studies about this party, no one seems to have focused on political talk shows, that is, “hybrid” situations, in which institutional and everyday elements merge and political actors “stage” their ideas and personal profiles for their positive self-presentation. Therefore, this article aims at analysing the language used by the two leading candidates of the party for the federal elections 2017, Gauland and Weidel, in political talk shows which took place between that and the previous year. Drawing mainly on the politlonguistic frame of analysis, combined with other tools derived from the Sprachkritik and the conversation analysis, this investigation sheds light on the main lexical-semantic, rhetorical-argumentative, pronominal and other strategies put into practice by the party in political televised debates.