Practical reasoning in turkish political discourse

Politics is one of the social domains in which its practices are discursively realised. In this social domain, politicians as political actors try to persuade the masses to whom they address in the direction of their own opinions and ideologies. Political discourse, with this aspect, is one of the areas of Critical Discourse Analysis. Political discourse which is based on the persuasion of public, politicians often use argumentation to justify their own views or refute opposing views. Therefore, political discourse is a type of argumentative text type. In this study, it is aimed to identify the practical reasoning structures used by the six candidates of the Millet and Cumhur Alliances in three metropolitan cities before 2019 Local Elections. For this purpose, the interviews of six candidates on different dates and on the same TV channel and program were analyzed using "Practical Reasoning Model" of Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) to answer the research questions: "What kind of practical reasoning structures are used in the context of local elections in Turkish political discourse?", "Do the practical reasoning structures used in the context of local election in Turkish political discourse differ between two alliances?" and "Is there any difference in terms of cities?". According to findings obtained from the analysis of data base, it was found that similar claims were asserted by both alliance candidates about local issues, projects and voters; however, it was found that the claims about general politics and municipal administration differed between two alliances and that the claims about election were asserted only by the candidates of Millet Alliance. Keywords: Politics, Political Discourse, Argumentative Discourse, Practical Reasoning Model, Practical Argument.