Scrutinizing Socio-Political Landscape in Vehicular Discourse: A Critical Discourse Examination

Abstract

This research scrutinizes Pakistani vehicular discourse as a window into the nation's nuanced sociopolitical scenario. It follows a critical discourse approach to study how inscriptions, slogans, and visual symbols that are evident on automobiles express political sentiments, societal worries, religious beliefs, and individual philosophies. In this research, the linguistic characteristics, production and interpretation processes, and larger socio-political settings that influence vehicle inscriptions have been studied and analyzed using Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional framework that includes textual analysis, discursive practice, and social practice. Moreover, the research uses Michel Foucault's viewpoints of discourse to shed light on how these mobile messages simultaneously reinforce and challenge social hierarchies, power dynamics, and prevalent ideologies. The research demonstrates how commonplace vehicular discourse becomes a dynamic location of meaning-making and social contention by merging Foucault's theoretical viewpoints on the dynamics of discourse and power with Fairclough's structural methodologies. The findings posit that vehicular discourse in Pakistan works as a critical reflection on the day-to-day life of the people by providing a distinct and movable archive of public awareness, rather than being only a way of decorative or personal expression.