ANALYZING THE POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES OF TUN MAHATHIR IN TWO ERAS: A CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS OF LEXICAL CHOICES

Abstract

The ideology behind Tun Mahathir’s way of thinking always been the subject of interest for many. This research will investigate the political ideology of Tun Mahathir based on his lexical choices and words frequency in his speeches during two different Prime Minister eras and will compare the two corpora lexical choices, words frequency and political ideology that exist within.A total of 151 texts were compiled which consisted of 79 texts from the first era (2001-2003) and 72 texts from the second era (2018-2020). The comparative analysis of the two corpora were conducted through two stages, its word frequencies especially nouns to help determining lexical choices and Critical Discourse Analysis in revealing Tun Mahathir's political ideologies. The result shows some differences in word frequencies and lexical choices in both eras in which reflected Tun Mahathir's political ideology in the two eras. The word ‘negara’, a noun, has the highest frequency for both eras and yet words that were ''economy'' related has the highest frequency during the first era whereas society related was the highest during the second era. The changes in Tun Mahathir political party during the two eras may be a contributors to the changes of the lexical choices and slight changes of political ideology that occur. The changes in political landscapes and social problems in Malaysia contributes to the factor as well. Investigating Tun Mahathir's lexical choices in different speeches can help to investigate deeper into Tun Mahathir''s political ideology.