Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
18th IDEA International Conference , Ankara, Türkiye, 12 - 15 Mayıs 2026, ss.170, (Özet Bildiri)
This study compares the sociolinguistic elements in the language of female politicians on X
platform, which is a popular social media channel previously known as Twitter. Meral Akşener
and Kamala Harris were chosen as the female politicians of these countries, based on the
sociopolitical context in Türkiye and the US in 2024, when the data was collected and analyzed.
In total, 1074 posts consisting of 60,500 tokens, on X were analyzed using a Computer Assisted
Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDAS) tool named MAXQDA 24. This comparative analysis
was conducted under the theoretical frameworks of Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis
(Fairclough 1995; Lazar 2005) and Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Model (1991). As social
media platforms provide a new area that has the potential to transform political decisions, the
language used there is radically affected by contextual factors. Moreover, with more flexible
boundaries, they enhance people to raise their voices about specific topics. Despite several
studies conducted in social media and the discourse of politics, there was a gap when it comes
to the sociocultural critical comparison of female politicians’ language from different countries.
This study contributes to the field as it found out that Turkish and American female politicians
have similarities and differences in the language they use in terms of their selection of topics,
addressing, individualism and collectivism, based on their countries’ contexts. Therefore, this
sociolinguistic analysis of how political womanhood is performed on social media showcases
that female politicians curate their voices in an increasingly digitized political landscape.
Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, Culture, Feminism, Social Media