‘Remember Our Race, Our Religion and Our Progeny’: An Argumentation Analysis of Malay-Language Newspapers During General Election Campaigns

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter focuses on discursive strategies of legitimation in mainstream Malay-language newspapers during the 13th and 14th general election campaigns. It analyses how editorials and columns published in Berita Harian and Utusan Malaysia constructed arguments during the campaign periods from 20 April to 4 May 2013 and 28 April to 8 May 2018. The chapter examines how particular relations of power were enacted, reproduced and legitimised within Malaysia’s government-owned mainstream media, where control was institutionalised. To contextualise and illuminate the discursive and social practices of both campaigns, the analysis is grounded in the discourse-historical approach’s conception of argumentation and pragma-dialectics’ ten rules for rational dispute and constructive arguing. This chapter, therefore, looks at the argumentation strategies employed in editorials and columns serving as a methodical justification of validity claims reflected linguistically using speech acts. The findings demonstrate the politics of fear that characterises much of Malaysian right-wing rhetoric, particularly how fear of the future was employed by Barisan Nasional as it struggled to maintain and retain legitimacy during both campaigns.