<![CDATA[TikTok compresses political argument into short, repeatable, and affectively charged forms in which language interacts with platform visibility. Purpose: This analytical pilot examines how linguistic choices construct power relations and ideological positions in TikTok-style political discourse. Method: A 30-unit normalized English corpus was coded through social media critical discourse studies and multimodal critical discourse analysis. The units are illustrative rather than verbatim quotations from identifiable accounts. Results: Evaluative lexis was the most frequent resource (60%), followed by collectivizing deixis (43.3%), polarization and metaphor (33.3% each), and directive modality (30%). These resources supported legitimation, delegitimation, mobilization, boundary-making, and claims to epistemic authority. People-versus-elite populism coexisted with democratic-participatory, social-justice, conservative, pluralist, and anti-authoritarian repertoires. Conclusion: TikTok political discourse converts ideological positions into compact and shareable linguistic scripts while the platform’s affordances can intensify their visibility. The study contributes a transparent coding model for future research using verified multimodal corpora. Because the present corpus is illustrative, the findings test an analytical framework rather than support population-level claims.]]>
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