Abstract

The purpose of this research is to find out the cricket jargons that are used in politics and media after the political speeches of former cricketer Imran Khan. The purpose of the study is to investigate the unknown views of politicians and media. The nature of the study is fully qualitative for data collection and is based on Fairclough Three Dimension Model. The researchers collected data from January 2021 to September 2022. The data was taken from politicians' speeches, media news channels, and Twitter. The results of this research show that nowadays politicians use cricket jargon to express their thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Politicians and the media of Pakistan use cricket jargon for different purposes, if they condemn, praise, support, and ridicule someone then they use cricket jargon.

Key Words

Cricket Jargon, Political Speeches, Media news Channels, Twitter

Introduction

A great blessing for humans is language, it is the essential medium through which humans communicate with each other. People express their thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, and thoughts with the help of languages. When people want to get the attention of others, they use more skilful language to easily attract them. However, political leaders also express their thoughts, ideas, and ideology with the help of languages, but they use more attractive and multi-coloured languages to attract their audience for different purposes. According to Haugh (1987), language allows people to communicate with each other. It suggests that people express their thoughts and ideas because of language. Language is the best medium and people use it to share their thoughts, emotions, thoughts, and feelings with others. Rahman et al. (2021) suggested that political leaders do the same, but they chose effective words to inspire their supporters and enlighten their minds for various purposes.

Many scholars have worked on politicians' rhetorical language and political speeches to determine how their use of rhetorical language in their speeches affects the public interest. Ullah et al. (2021) suggested that rhetoric is a skilful language through which politicians influence their audience and persuade them to support or oppose something. Politicians shape the minds of the common people and persuade them with the language of rhetoric.

Many studies on political speeches work on how political leaders use figures of speech and affective language. However, the interest of this study is in the cricket jargon used by politicians in their speeches. Imran Khan is a former cricketer, so he uses cricket jargon in his political speeches, other party members also use cricket jargon in their political campaigns. The study by Ullah, Masroor and Shahabullah (2021) titled 'Politics is a Game' shows that Imran Khan constantly uses cricket jargon in his political speeches for various reasons such as praise, patriotism, power, and criticizing corrupt politicians.

Critical discourse analysis takes a clearly sociopolitical stance towards the study of discourse (van Dijk, 1993: 249), examining the meaning of language in and through social practices (Gee, 1999). Fairclough (2010: 14) emphasizes that critical research including CDA, should be prioritized. Early studies focused on the role of political ideologies in the collective social representation of dissident groups and their members (Van Dijk, 1997), on ways to differentiate a political actor from his or her rivals (Wilson, 1990), or on linguistic-politeness strategies to enhance one’s own role in the society. 

Political leaders use rhetorical language for their own purposes. They want to get the attention of common people and like other politicians, Imran Khan also wants to get the attention of the audience. Because of this, he mostly uses cricket jargon in his speeches. Many researchers have worked on Imran Khan's political speeches, but the main focus here is on the cricket jargon used by Imran Khan and other politicians for various purposes in politics and on media news channels and Twitter. This research will investigate and interpret the use of cricket jargon by Imran Khan, other politicians, and the media. Therefore, the main focus here is to explore the cricket jargon in political discourses.




Research Questions

The research has the following questions:

1. Is there any representation of cricket jargon in Pakistani media?

2. Did Imran Khan influence the language of the media?

3. How much did Imran Khan influence the public through the language of cricket?

4. How much do political leaders express themselves through cricket jargon and how much does the media use cricket jargon?




Research Objectives

The research has the following objectives:

1. The purpose of this is to explore the terminology of cricket in Pakistani media.

2. To know how Imran Khan influences media language.

3. To find out that Imran Khan influences people through the language of cricket.

4. To know the use of cricket language by Pakistani media and politicians to express their thoughts and ideas.




Delimitation of the Study 

The study is delimited to Imran Khan's speeches, and then it is limited to the cricket jargon that Imran Khan uses in his speeches. The study focuses only on Imran Khan's speeches, in addition, it takes an interest in news channels that use the cricket jargon for a deeper meaning. Along with them, it also focuses on other politicians who use cricket jargon for political purposes.

Literature Review

A great blessing for humans is language, it is the essential medium through which humans communicate with each other. People express their thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, and thoughts with the help of languages. When people want to get the attention of others, they use more skilful language to easily attract them. However, political leaders also express their thoughts, ideas, and ideology with the help of languages, but they use more attractive and multi-coloured languages to attract their audience for different purposes. According to Haugh (1987), language allows people to communicate with each other. It suggests that people express their thoughts and ideas because of language. Language is the best medium and people use it to share their thoughts, emotions, thoughts, and feelings with others. Rahman et al. (2021) suggested that political leaders do the same, but they chose effective words to inspire their supporters and enlighten their minds for various purposes.

Many scholars have worked on politicians' rhetorical language and political speeches to determine how their use of rhetorical language in their speeches affects the public interest. Ullah et al. (2021) suggested that rhetoric is a skilful language through which politicians influence their audience and persuade them to support or oppose something. Politicians shape the minds of the common people and persuade them with the language of rhetoric.

Many studies on political speeches work on how political leaders use figures of speech and affective language. However, the interest of this study is in the cricket jargon used by politicians in their speeches. Imran Khan is a former cricketer, so he uses cricket jargon in his political speeches, other party members also use cricket jargon in their political campaigns. The study by Ullah, Masroor and Shahabullah (2021) titled 'Politics is a Game' shows that Imran Khan constantly uses cricket jargon in his political speeches for various reasons such as praise, patriotism, power, and criticizing corrupt politicians.

Critical discourse analysis takes a clearly sociopolitical stance towards the study of discourse (van Dijk, 1993: 249), examining the meaning of language in and through social practices (Gee, 1999). Fairclough (2010: 14) emphasizes that critical research including CDA, should be prioritized. Early studies focused on the role of political ideologies in the collective social representation of dissident groups and their members (Van Dijk, 1997), on ways to differentiate a political actor from his or her rivals (Wilson, 1990), or on linguistic-politeness strategies to enhance one’s own role in the society. 

Political leaders use rhetorical language for their own purposes. They want to get the attention of common people and like other politicians, Imran Khan also wants to get the attention of the audience. Because of this, he mostly uses cricket jargon in his speeches. Many researchers have worked on Imran Khan's political speeches, but the main focus here is on the cricket jargon used by Imran Khan and other politicians for various purposes in politics and on media news channels and Twitter. This research will investigate and interpret the use of cricket jargon by Imran Khan, other politicians, and the media. Therefore, the main focus here is to explore the cricket jargon in political discourses.




Research Questions

The research has the following questions:

1. Is there any representation of cricket jargon in Pakistani media?

2. Did Imran Khan influence the language of the media?

3. How much did Imran Khan influence the public through the language of cricket?

4. How much do political leaders express themselves through cricket jargon and how much does the media use cricket jargon?




Research Objectives

The research has the following objectives:

1. The purpose of this is to explore the terminology of cricket in Pakistani media.

2. To know how Imran Khan influences media language.

3. To find out that Imran Khan influences people through the language of cricket.

4. To know the use of cricket language by Pakistani media and politicians to express their thoughts and ideas.




Delimitation of the Study 

The study is delimited to Imran Khan's speeches, and then it is limited to the cricket jargon that Imran Khan uses in his speeches. The study focuses only on Imran Khan's speeches, in addition, it takes an interest in news channels that use the cricket jargon for a deeper meaning. Along with them, it also focuses on other politicians who use cricket jargon for political purposes.

Research Methodology

This study only focused on cricket jargon following the speeches of former cricketer Imran Khan. In this research, the data from Imran Khan's speeches, media news channels, and tweets of Pakistani politicians have been taken. The nature of this study is entirely qualitative in data collection, representation, and methodology, and is also based on Fairclough's three-dimensional model. The aim of the study is to investigate the cricket jargon in politics as well as media with the help of Fairclough’s three-dimensional model. The data was taken from Pakistani media, tweets, and speeches of politicians from January 2021 to September 2022. The mother tongue of Pakistan is Urdu, all speeches and news available in Urdu were translated into English for data analysis.

Fairclough model which is based on three dimensions (description, interpretation, and explanation), types of words, influence strategies, positivity, and negativity of politicians was used by the researchers. The researchers collected cricket jargon from the speeches of Imran Khan and other politicians as well as news channels like ARY News, 92 News, and Geo News Channel as well as Twitter. Researchers have observed how political figures impose their ideology on audiences through the use of cricket jargon.




 

Description of the Text of Cricket Jargon

 

Table 1

Cricket Jargon Used by the Politicians and Pakistani Media

Cricket jargon	Different Uses
Century	The number of candidates to become a senator has completed a century.
Bouncer	Federal ministers gave a bouncer reply to the PDM strike.
Captain, player	The captain heard the voice of Baluchistan players.
Yorker, Clean bowled	The statement given by the corrupt league was yorked and clean-bowled by Imran Khan.
Head coach	The head coach of PDM retired and settled in London.
Twelfth man	Maulana Fazlur Rehman is like the twelfth man in politics.
Unfit players	How will unfit players compete with Imran Khan's fitness?
Test match, last five-over match	PPP is playing a test match and Maulana wants to play the last five-overs match.
Umpire	Those who deal with the umpire will make such a noise.
Ball, ground	Prime Minister Imran Khan threw the opposition ball out of the ground.
Wickets	Three more wickets were to fall off PDM.
Batting	The Chief Election Commission was batting with them, they were defeated.
Match	They tried their best to keep Imran Khan away from the match.
Clean bowled	Imran Niazi will be clean-bowled.
Game	A foul game has been played by the presiding officers.
Hat trick	In the PTI government, the finance ministers have been removed from their posts and a hat trick has been achieved.
Out	After Asad Umar and Hafeez Sheikh, Hamad Azhar was also out.
Neutral umpire	A neutral umpire demanded the Punjab hydro measurement.
Home ground	The captain is facing defeat at home ground.
Bat	Bat failed; book succeeded in KPK.
Waseem Akram                    plus	They pushed Wasim Akram Plus into the water when the Exact boat sank.
Playing, won	Zardari and Nawaz Sharif are playing with each other while Zardari has won the game.

Data Analysis and Discussion

The data given in Table 1 shows the frequency of use of cricket jargon. These words are mainly used in political speeches for various purposes and have deep meanings. Indeed, this kind of language easily attracts the audience and has a profound effect on their views. Cricket terms are used for various purposes in politics and media, if politicians condemn, praise, support each other, or show a positive or negative attitude towards someone, then they use cricket jargon. If Imran Khan uses the words of cricket for himself, he shows that he was a strong, honest, and brave cricketer and now he is a great political leader, but he would have used the words of cricket in a negative sense for PDM. He criticizes them for being corrupt. Media news channels also use cricket jargon for their purposes and advertisement that people are more interested in their news.

Politicians always use rhetorical strategies to gain the attention of their audience and achieve goals. For example, on February 14, 2021, ARY News used the headline 'the number of candidates to become a senator has completed a century’, meaning that a hundred candidates filed their documents for the Senate elections. In the language of cricket, the word century is used for completing a hundred runs. Imran Khan was a former cricketer and he mostly uses cricket language in his speeches due to which media as well as other politicians also use cricket language. 'Federal ministers give bouncer reply to PDM strike' is another example of ARY News headlines on January 19, 2021. PDM started a strike against the PTI government. The term bouncer here means that PTI federal ministers criticized the PDM strike badly.

As another example, 'the captain heard the voice of Baluchistan players'. Shahbaz Gill said in tweets on 13 February 2021 that Imran Khan always listened to the voice of his party members. Here the captain was used to refer to Imran Khan and the players used to refer to their party workers. Imran Khan was the captain of his team in cricket, now politicians call him captain and his party workers are considered players.

The next example is 'the statement given by the corrupt league was yorked and clean-bowled by Imran Khan’. PTI party worker Firdous Ashiq Awan while talking to the media on February 24, 2021, said that Imran Khan told the corrupt league at which polling station they did not win the election, contest the election again. A yorker is a cricket word meaning a straight ball, the yorker used here for Imran Khan is a strong and straight answer and clean bowled to indicate the weakness of the opposition. Next is 'the head coach of PDM retired and settled in London'. Speaking to the media on February 14, 2021, she said that Nawaz Sharif has retired from politics and is only coaching from London. The head coach uses for the head of the team who gives feedback to his team, but here head coach is used for Nawaz Sharif. She also said that 'Maulana Fazlur Rehman is like the twelfth man in politics'. She criticizes Maulana Fazlur Rehman that who is the twelfth man in politics and his wicket was dropped. The twelfth man indicates an extra player in cricket. This statement shows that Maulana is not a candidate in politics or has no value. She also had the statement 'How will unfit players compete with Imran Khan's fitness? She means that corrupt politicians do not compete with Imran Khan's politics, unfit players are those players who cannot play cricket, these words are used here for corrupt politicians.

The next example is ' PPP is playing a test match and Maulana wants to play the last five-overs match'. Former Member of Parliament Sheikh Rasheed said that Pakistan People's Party does not want mid-term elections and Maulana Fazlur Rehman is not a candidate for a major position. That is why he wants early elections. Test match refers to a long-duration match in cricket and the last five-over match refers to a short-duration game.

PTI party member Murad Saeed said in tweets that ‘those who deal with the umpire will make such a noise’. In the old days when teams played cricket in their country, those teams had their own umpire, whenever the team faced any problem, the umpire came to help, then that team won the match through the umpire. So, here umpire is used for people who support corrupt people.

Another example is 'former Prime Minister Imran Khan threw the opposition ball out of the ground' meaning that Imran Khan will not let the opposition get away with the foreign funding case, and the opposition will no longer be a part of politics.

Here are some more examples, 'three more wickets were to fall of PDM'. Prime Minister Imran Khan said that if he contested the election, PDM would lose three more seats. So PDM was afraid of elections, Imran Khan used the term 'wicket' for seats here. He said that 'the Chief Election Commission was batting with them; they were defeated chief'. Here he means that the Chief Election Commission supported them in the election but still they lost. The term batting here means supporting them in the election. Imran Khan said that 'they tried their best to keep Imran Khan away from the match', which means that the oppositions want to keep Imran Khan away from politics, here the word match has been used for politics.

Other party members also use cricket jargon in their speeches. For example, PMLN party member Hamza Shehbaz said that 'Imran Niazi will be clean-bowled'. Clean-bowled is used in cricket. He means that he will defeat Imran Niazi in the election. People's Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto said that a ‘foul game has been played by the presiding officers’. It means that they fought an unfair election through the head of the polling station.

Geo News Channel also uses cricket jargon, some examples of which are provided here such as ‘in the PTI government, the finance ministers have been removed from their posts and a hat trick has been done’. 

On April 16, 2021, Geo News headlines said that ‘PTI government removed all three finance ministers from their posts, and After Asad Umar and Hafeez Sheikh, Hamad Azhar was also out’, means that after Asad Umar and Hafeez Sheikh, Hamad Azhar also free from their positions. In the bulletin on 28 May 2021, that 'a neutral umpire demanded for the Punjab hydro measurement'. A neutral umpire in cricket means not to support one side in a team, i.e. Federal Minister for Water Resources Mohsin Laghari demanded a water measure in which one candidate from Punjab and one from Sindh and an unknown candidate from the federation were included. 

On 24 December 2021, 92 News Channel presented that 'the captain is facing defeat at the home ground'. KPK is considering the home ground for Imran Khan, which means Imran Khan lost the KPK election. On 21 December 2021, another example from 92 News Channel claimed in the headlines that 'bat failed; book succeeded in KPK’ means that PTI has lost the election in KPK and JUI has won.

Vice President of PMLN Maryam Nawaz said that ‘they pushed Wasim Akram Plus into the water when the Exact boat sank’ Wasim Akram is a former cricketer and Imran Khan addressed Wasim Akram Plus as Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. It means the PTI government was lost and trapped in foreign funding case so they used Usman Buzdar to their advantage.

Federal Minister for Planning, Development, Reforms and Special Initiatives Asad Umar said that 'Zardari and Nawaz Sharif are playing with each other while Zardari has won the game’ he means that it was known from the first day. That PPP will not resign and Nawaz Sharif wants to run PDM from London, Zardari is smarter than Nawaz Sharif.

Summarizing all the discussion, it proves that the language of cricket is used not only in cricket but also in politics and media. The whole debate is based on different uses of cricket, and how politicians convey their ideas through cricket jargon.

Conclusion

To conclude, language is the essential medium for communication; politicians use rhetorical language to impose their ideology on the public. Imran Khan is a former cricketer, so he uses cricket jargon in his speeches. So, after Imran Khan, other politicians and media news channels also use cricket jargon. The main focus of this research is on the language of cricket used by Imran Khan, other politicians, and the media. Cricket jargon is not only used in cricket but its use is also enhanced in politics, media, and Twitter. This study has exposed the unseen ideologies of politicians using cricket jargon, especially Imran Khan. Fairclough's three-dimensional model revealed to the researcher that cricket jargon is used for different purposes in politics and media, politicians use cricket jargon to praise, condemn and support each other. This work will provide further areas of study for other researchers.

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