The Emotional Strength of Political Catchwords Illustrated by Examples from Albanian

Abstract

The necessity in politics to express conflicts of interest through publicist means in the media field often leads to the use of catchwords in politics language. These words are mostly used by different social groups in public speeches, in the conflict of thoughts as well as in the fight for political power with content, interests and different aims. The slogan words provoke different emotional reactions and bear a positive or negative connotation depending on people’s experience in communication. Catchwords are used in an appealing way in discussions about particular topics causing the recipients to have an affective attitude. Apart from the important role they play in the political propaganda they bear affective feelings additionally. This feature gives them a special dynamic: The words not only reach to cause the recipients’ enthusiasm, based on their emotionality, but they motivate to act as well.

Keywords: catchword, propaganda, political speech, affective use, polemic use.