Language use in the Tanzanian 2015 presidential election campaigns placards.

This study analysed the language used in the placards of the political parties’ supporters in the 2015 Tanzania’s Presidential Election Campaigns. The objective was to establish how supporters of two political parties/groups namely; Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), the dominant ruling party and UKAWA coalition (the opposition), use of language reflects ideologies, feelings and attitudes towards the presidential candidates and their political parties as they discredited each other and credit themselves. The study collected data which were mainly from secondary sources; Internet (blogs), election reports and library documents (news-papers).The data were then analysed using Fairclough’s framework for Critical Discourse Analysis (TODA). The findings show that the political parties supporters had strong choices of words which reflected their strong feelings. The data inform that voters from both political parties/groups wanted change however each political group expressed it in ways that served their interest. Dr Magufuli as a presidential candidate seem to be viewed positive by both political groups, this is explicitly expressed by CCM supporters and implied by UKAWA coalition supporters. Language use is generally characterised by propaganda; the positive ‘us’ and ‘our’ action is capitalized and the negative ‘us’ and ‘our’ action is openly and implicitly defended while the negative ‘them’ and ‘their’ action is capitalized. The political parties’ supporters use of language also reflect that they are holding power/they think they are holding power in a political campaign discourse. They (political parties’ supporters) extensively employed linguistic and non-linguistic features which carried a trace of their feelings, attitudes and ideologies. The discourse under study reproduces and challenges the existing ideologies. This study recommends a study on political parties supporters’ language use on social media such Jamii Forums as a way of widening knowledge on the political campaign discourse.