Effects of Uncivil and Abusive Language Used by Pakistani Political Leaders on Society: Citizens Adoption of Negative Terms Against the Teachings of Islam

Abstract

Pakistan was established in the name of Islam for the Muslims residing under the control of British India in 1947. This study focuses on the grass root level effects of uncivil language of political leaders used in the electoral campaigns and telecasted on television. The research method was survey and purposive sampling technique was used for data collection from nine towns of Lahore from the Muslim citizens who actually participated in the GE 2018. The theoretical support was taken from The Speech Act Theory and Psycho-Linguistic Theory. The study revealed that the impact of uncivil language of political leaders is witnessed at grass root level as 36.9% citizens re-used the negative phrases of political leaders in their social circles as χ2(4) = 26.809, p < .05. Hence, the hypothesis “Muslim citizens re-used negative political terms and phrases coined by their party leaders against teachings of Islam” was fully supported by this research study and literature. Negative statements of political leaders repeated on television were also re-used by the citizens in their routine life (by 43.1%) showing a significant effect as χ2(4) = 33.464, p < .05.