PARLIAMENTARY DISCOURSES

Cornelia Ilie
cornelia.ilie@hum.oru.se

Ilie, Cornelia. 2006. Parliamentary Discourses. In Keith Brown (ed.) Encyclopedia of Language and
Linguistics 2nd Edition, Vol. 9, 188-197. Oxford: Elsevier.

Introduction

In many countries parliamentary proceedings are broadcast nowadays on radio and television, as
well as reported in the press and in specialised publications. However, in spite of the growing
visibility of parliamentary institutions, the scholarly interest for the study of parliamentary
discourse has been rather low until recently. There is one notable exception, though: one
parliament that has drawn considerable attention and continues to be much explored is the U.K.
Parliament. This interest may be accounted for by its being probably the oldest institution of its
kind which has also managed to maintain a great deal of its institutional and discursive rituals.
This retention is also the reason why this brief survey of parliamentary discourse is concerned to
a large extent with the characteristic features and functions of British parliamentary discourse.

Ever since the latter half of the 20th century parliamentary discourse and parliamentary rhetoric
have gradually become the object of scholarly research in the fields of political sciences and
sociology (Silk and Walters 1987, Morgan and Tame 1996, Olson and Norton 1996, Copeland
and Patterson 1997), but only very recently have they become a truly interdisciplinary concern
through the involvement of linguistic scholarship (Carbó 1992, Slembrouck 1992, Biryukov et al
1995, Ilie 2000, 2001, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2003d, 2004, 2005, ter Wal 2000a, Van der Valk
2000a, 2000b, Van Dijk 2000a, 2004, Wodak and Van Dijk 2000, Pérez de Ayala 2001, Wilson
and Stapleton 2003, Bayley 2004). Whereas the research rooted in social and political sciences
focuses primarily on the explanation of facts and interpretation of issues, political events and
socio-political processes, linguistic research has benefited from the cross-fertilisation with the
above-mentioned disciplines in its exploration of the shifting and multi-leveled institutionalised
use of language, the communicative interaction of institutional agents, the interplay between
parliamentary dialogue and the thinking processes of its participants, the interdependence
between language-shaped facts and reality-prompted language ritualisation and change.

Parliamentary systems

It may be useful to recall that the word parliament is derived from the the Old French parlement,
originally from parler, i.e. to speak. By metonymic transfer, the term has come to refer to an
institution specialised in a particular kind of talk, and even to the building that hosts such an
institution. Nowadays the term parliament is used as the generic term for a legislative assembly
in certain countries, i.e. a governmental deliberative body made up of representatives of a nation
or people with the authority to adopt laws. There are legislative assemblies known by other
names, such as congress, diet and national assembly.

Most legislatures are either unicameral or bicameral. A unicameral legislature is the simplest
kind of law-making body and has only one house. A bicameral legislature has two separate
chambers, an upper and a lower house. In most parliamentary systems, the lower house is more
powerful, while the upper house is merely a chamber of advice or review. In presidential
systems, however, the powers of the two houses are often similar or equal. In federations it is
typical for the upper house to represent the component states.

Parliamentarism is often praised, as compared to presidentialism, for its flexibility and

responsiveness to the public. It is criticised, though, for its tendency to sometimes lead to
unstable governments, as in the German Weimar Republic, the French Fourth Republic, Italy,
and Israel. Parliamentarism became increasingly prevalent in Europe in the years after World
War I, partly imposed by the democratic victors, France and England, on the defeated countries
and their successors, notably Germany’s Weimar Republik and the new Austrian Republic.
Several nations that are considered parliamentary actually have presidents who are elected
separately from the legislature and who have certain real powers. Examples of this type of
governance are Ireland and Austria.

For historical and political reasons, the most geographically widespread parliamentary system is
the Westminster system, named after Westminster Palace, the meeting place of Britain’s
parliament. The Westminster system is used in Britain and in many nations of the
Commonwealth countries, such as Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Jamaica, New
Zealand and India, and in non-Commonwealth states like Ireland. There are parliamentary
governments, such as Germany and Italy, whose legislative procedures differ considerably from
the Westminster system.

One major difference between the Westminster system and the types of parliamentarism used in
the rest of Europe and in non-Commonwealth monarchies outside of Europe is the voting
system. Most Westminister systems use a kind of voting system, as mentioned above, known as
”first past the post.” In this system, each district elects one representative and that representative
can be elected with a plurality. All the other European parliamentary systems use some kind of
proportional representation, usually the list system. First past the post favors a two-party system,
whereas proportional representation favors a multi-party system.

The Westminster parliamentary system

The first English Parliament was formed during the reign of King Henry III in the 13th century.
The emergence of Parliament in England during the Middle Ages was not an isolated
phenomenon. Throughout Europe from the 12th to the 14th centuries, similar bodies were
regularly summoned in other communities too, as the notion of a community of each realm
began to replace the feudal ties that bound individuals only to their lord.

In the Middle Ages, especially from the 13th century on, Parliament used to be called together by
the king as a reaction to pending problems. The Tudor, and especially the Elizabethan,
parliamentary standardisation started with a formal record of the Commons’ proceedings in the
Journal, which was kept from 1547, and with a group of manuals of parliamentary procedure and
privileges.

By the end of the 18th century the publication of parliamentary debates and regular press
reporting became common practice. As a result, parliamentarians were becoming more aware of
the changing status and responsibility of parliamentary discourse and the necessity of shaping
extra-parliamentary opinion.

In the 19th century, when the British Parliament resembled a ”London club”, the members’
capacity to scrutinise and influence the government in office was relatively limited. It was in the
latter half of the 20th century that Parliament witnessed some of the major changes in modern
times and acquired a more central role in the policy-making process.

Parliamentary norms and reports

Information technology provides nowadays easy access to national parliamentary websites,

which are available at the following address: http://www.ipu.org/english/parlweb.htm The fact
that most parliaments have established their presence on the web makes the legislative process
and parliamentary proceedings more transparent and subject to public scrutiny. These sites have
searchable databases of committee reports, records, hearings, votes and other parliamentary
documents. Special sections are devoted to parliamentary questions and enquiries. Many of the
parliamentary sites have a parallel version in English. Some parliamentary websites offer even
audio and video web telecasting of parliamentary sessions.

The salient rhetorical features that characterise parliamentary interaction are counterbalanced by
explicit institutional constraints, the most important of which are stipulated in Erskine May’s
Treatise on the law, privileges, proceedings and usage of Parliament (Limon and McKay 1997).
It represents a code of behaviour that regulates the various forms of parliamentary interaction in
the U.K. Parliament.
Hansard is the Official Report of the proceedings of the U.K. Parliament and is now published on
the internet on the UK Parliament site: www.parliament.uk Hansard is published daily when
Parliament is sitting, being also available in bound issues. In the House of Commons the Hansard
Reporters sit in a gallery above the Speaker and take down every word that is said in the
Chamber. The name ’Hansard’ was officially adopted in 1943 after Luke Hansard (1752 - 1828)
who was the printer of the House of Commons Journal from 1774.

The Hansard reports, which are theoretically supposed to be verbatim, actually involve a certain
amount of editing meant to do away with some of the formal shortcomings of any oral delivery.
Slembrouck (1992) signalled some of the problems involved in the transcription process. First,
intrinsic elements of spontaneous speech, such as false starts, involuntary repetitions, or
incomplete sentences, are left out. Second, the written version does not reflect features of spoken
language, such as intonation, stress and regional accents. Moreover, certain reformulations are
produced by Hansard editors in order to avoid clumsy or unclear messages. Since the transcripts
are not entirely accurate, it is necessary for analysts of parliamentary discourse to have access to
video recordings of the proceedings under consideration.

The genre of parliamentary discourse

The notions of discourse and genre, however fuzzy and problematic, are central to the study of
interaction practices in institutional settings like the Parliament. Current discourse-analytical
approaches envisage discourse as ”language use relative to social, political and cultural
formations – it is language reflecting social order but also language shaping social order, and
shaping individuals’ interaction with society.” (Jaworski and Coupland 1999: 3). This definition
can certainly apply to parliamentary discourse, i.e. a discourse in which institutional facework,
political meaning negotiation and power management are being articulated and publicly
displayed.

Like discourse and institutions, genres and institutions are mutually constitutive and acquire
legitimacy within a speech community. In spite of its controversiality, the notion of ’genre’ can
offer important insights into the nature, scope and functions of parliamentary discourse.
Following Swales (1998/1990), genre may be regarded primarily as ”a class of communicative
events in which language (and/or paralanguage) plays both a significant and an indispensable
role” (1998: 45) and ”the members of which share some set of communicative purposes” (1998:
58). Furthermore, ”these purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse
community, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre” (1998: 58).

From a pragma-linguistic perspective, parliamentary discourse belongs to the genre of political

discourse. As such, it displays particular institutionalised discursive features and ritualised
interaction strategies, while complying with and/or circumventing a number of specific rules and
constraints. The discursive interaction of parliamentarians is constantly marked by their
institutional role-based commitments, by the dialogically shaped institutional confrontation and
by the awareness of acting in front and on behalf of a multi-level audience. Parliamentary
debates are meant to achieve a number of institutionally specific purposes, namely position-
claiming, persuading, negotiating, agenda-setting, and opinion building, usually along
ideological or party lines.

From a rhetorical perspective, parliamentary discourse belongs to the deliberative genre of

political rhetoric, which is defined as an oratorical discourse targetting an audience that is asked
to make a decision by evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of a future course of action.
Elements characteristic of the forensic and epideictic genres are also present, even if occasionally
and to a lesser extent. This confirms the Bakhtinian view that genres are heterogeneous. One of
the major functions of Members of Parliament (henceforth MPs) is to contribute to problem-
solving tasks regarding legal and political deliberation, as well as decision making processes. A
major incentive for the parliamentarians’ active participation in the debates is the constant need
to promote their own image in a competitive and performance-oriented institutional interaction.
The MPs’ discourse is meant to call into question the opponents’ ethos, i.e. political credibility
and moral profile, while enhancing their own ethos in an attempt to strike a balance between
logos, i.e. logical reasoning, and pathos, i.e. emotion eliciting force.

Subgenres of parliamentary discourse

The genre of parliamentary discourse displays several subgenres, such as ministerial statements,
speeches, debates, oral/written questions and Question Time.

A common feature of many European legislatures (for example in Germany and Sweden) is the
interpellation or ”short debate” by means of which an opposition party (or an equivalent number
of MPs) can call a debate on a topical issue or a matter of public concern. Interpellations can be
regarded as mini-debates on broad areas of a minister’s responsibilities.

Oral ministerial statements are made in the House of Commons after questions and urgent
questions, before the public business of the day. Their purpose is to announce new policies or to
provide specific information about current or urgent political matters. A minister speaks on
behalf of the government to present their official views to Parliament. Statements can be on any
subject ranging from a new policy announcement to an important national or international event
or crisis.
Parliamentary speeches are traditional forms of political discourse. In the House of Commons all
speeches are addressed to the Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House, who acts as a
chairperson. The Opening Speech is the first speech in a debate. The MP who has moved, or
proposed, the motion outlines their view of why the House should adopt the motion.
Parliamentary speeches are supposed to display, apart from facts or events, also self-
presentations and other-presentations.

A parliamentary debate can be described in general terms as a formal discussion on a particular

topic which is strictly controlled by an institutional set of rules and presided over by the Speaker
of the House. According to Factsheet 52 (available at the U.K. Parliament website), “the style of
debate in the House has traditionally been based on cut-and-thrust: listening to other Members’
speeches and intervening in them in spontaneous reaction to opponents’ views”. Members take it
in turns to speak on the subject concerned.

Since it is during debates that most of the parliamentary confrontation takes place, it is hardly
surprising that several studies on parliamentary discourse have focused on highly topical issues
discussed in parliaments. A recurrent theme is the debate on immigration, i.e. legitimating the
expulsion of illegal immigrants in the Spanish Parliament (Martín Rojo and Van Dijk 1997,
Martín Rojo 2000), argumentation and counter-argumentation in Italian parliamentary debates on
immigration (ter Wal 2000a, 2000b), disputes on immigration and nationality in the French
Parliament (Van der Valk 2000b, Cabasino 2001), disputes on illegal immigrants, asylum and
integration in the Dutch Parliament (Van der Valk 2000a). Closely related themes have also been
explored: the distinctive features of parliamentary discourses on ethnic issues in six European
states (Wodak and Van Dijk 2000, ter Wal 2000b), the regional parliamentary discourse from
Northern Ireland on the use of Ulster-Scots and Irish alongside English, in official proceedings
(Wilson and Stapleton 2003).

There is a comprehensive set of rules set out in Erskine May regarding the form, content and
scope of the subgenre of oral and written questions. One of these rules stipulates that neither the
questions nor the answers should be sustained by reasoning that may give rise to controversy.
Other rules apply parliamentary norms to questions, while still others define the issues on which
questions could be asked. Unlike the questioning strategies in courtroom interaction, which are
meant to elicit particular expected answers and to exclude unsuitable answers, parliamentary
questioning strategies are not intended to elicit particular answers, but rather to embarrass and/or
to challenge the respondent to make uncomfortable or revealing declarations.

As has been suggested by Franklin and Norton (1993), it seems that oral questions are asked
primarily where the MP considers some publicity is desirable, whereas written questions are
asked when the primary goal is to obtain information. Asking a question is usually a pretext to
attack or praise the government and involves information that is already known: ”Few members
would run the risk of asking such a question without knowing the likely answer” (Franklin and
Norton 1993: 112).
One of the prototypical forms of parliamentary questioning discourse is ‘Question Time’ in the
U.K. Parliament, ‘Question Period’ in the Canadian Parliament, ‘Frågestund’ in the Swedish
Riksdag, ‘Questions au Gouvernement’ in the French Parliament, ‘Heure des questions’ in the
Belgian Parliament, to name but a few. This questioning procedure was introduced in the
European Parliament in 1973. Apart from oral questions, all these parliaments allow for
questions tabled for written answers. Question Time is a specific session devoted to questioning
the foremost representatives of the Government, namely the Prime Minister and/or Government
Ministers, by their fellow MPs (cf. Factsheet P1 about Parliamentary questions available on the
U.K. Parliament website). Government members are held accountable for their political
intentions, statements and actions by fellow MPs. The order in which the questions are asked is
previously established by a process of random selection. The Speaker calls up the MPs who want
to ask questions. The first question, about the Prime Minister’s engagements is always
predictable. However, it offers several possibilities for asking supplementary questions, which
are the really tricky ones for the Prime Minister, as well as for the other responding Ministers,
who have to be prepared for all kinds of unexpected questions.

Question Time becomes particularly confrontational when the questioning is carried out by
members of the Opposition. This explains why Question Time has been described as “a face-
threatening genre” by Pérez de Ayala (2001: 147), who shows that the high frequency of face-
threatrening acts is counterbalaced by a wide range of politeness strategies. Each macro-question
is analysed in terms of adjacency pairs, turns, moves and discourse acts. The histrionic and
agonistic features of three parliamentary subgenres, i.e. speeches, debates and Question Time,
are examined by Ilie (2003b), who makes a systematic comparison with corresponding subgenres
of theatre performances, starting from the consideration that parliamentary dialogue contributes
to revealing frames of mind and beliefs, as well as exposing instances of doublespeak and
incompatible or inconsistent lines of action. Two rhetorical strategies are particularly
investigated in the two discourse types, namely rhetorical questions and rhetorical
parentheticals.

Parliamentary activity frames

As was shown in Ilie (2003b), in order to capture the major characteristics of parliamentary
discourse activities it is useful to take into account three main types of institutional frames,
namely spatial-temporal frame, which regards the spatial and temporal dimensions, i.e. the
physical environment of parliamentary institutions and participant positioning in space and time;
participant frame, which regards the roles and identities of parliamentary agents, as well as
speaker-addressee and speaker-audience relationship; and finally, interaction frame, which
regards the institutional structuring and functions of various activity types that are carried out in
parliament.

(1) Spatial-temporal frame in Parliament

Spatial frames regard in the first place the physical setting of the parliament building and the
seating arrangements. The physical setting of the House of Commons, with the Government MPs
and Opposition MPs facing each other as members of two competing camps has undoubtedly
played an important role in fostering an adversarial and confrontational tone of debate. The
Speaker’s Chair faces the main public gallery, called the Strangers’ Gallery, where members of
the public at large are supposed to sit and watch the debates. A much wider audience of TV-
viewers have nowadays the possibility to watch the parliamentary sessions that are telecast. But
in this case, the audience’s viewing perspective is restricted to the specific filming angles chosen
by parliamentary TV-camerapersons when foregrounding or backgrounding certain persons,
interactions, etc.

Above the Speaker’s Chair is the Reporters’ Gallery. On the floor of the House on the Speaker’s
right are the benches occupied by the supporters of the Government. By convention, Ministers sit
on the front bench on the right hand of the speaker. The Prime Minister’s seat is opposite to the
despatch box on the Table. Official Opposition spokespersons use the front bench to the
Speaker’s left. The Leader of the Opposition is sitting opposite the despatch box on that side of
the Table. Thus, as a result of the seating arrangement, Government MPs and Opposition MPs
are practically facing each other. Minority parties sit on the benches (often the front two) below
the gangway on the left, though a minority party that identifies with the Government may sit on
the right-hand side. However, as is indicated in Factsheet 52, “there is nothing sacrosanct about
these places, and on sundry occasions, when a Member has deliberately chosen to occupy a place
on the front bench or on the opposite of the House from normal, there is no redress for such
action”.

Speeches made in the House of Commons have to conform to very specific rules. A Minister or
Opposition spokesperson can speak from the Dispatch Box at the Table of the House, but other
MPs have to rise to speak from where they were previously sitting and not from a rostrum.
However, front-bench members usually stand at one of the Despatch boxes.

Important time-related constraints should also be taken into account in connection with the
spatial frame. Some parliamentary sittings, such as Question Time, start at a particular pre-
established time and are normally time-bound. There are, however, parliamentary proceedings,
such as debates, that do not always have a fixed or pre-established duration. Their starting time is
designated beforehand, but the finishing time is often delayed. Certain debates on very
controversial issues may end long after midnight. This is mainly due to innumerable procedural
incidents, an extremely high number of amendments and frequent unauthorised interruptions. A
comparable situation can be found in most parliaments.

(2) Participant frame in Parliament

In all parliaments, MPs enact specific participant roles, namely interacting participants and
onlooking audiences. MPs are involved in a co-performance which is meant to both address and
engage (sometimes even co-act with) an audience of MPs as active participants, who are
expected to contribute explicit forms of audience-feedback, e.g. questions, responses,
interruptions. What is important for MPs is to consistently promote a political line which meets
the general wishes of the voters (as expressed at general elections), to put certain issues on the
political agenda, as well as to take desirable initiatives and effective measures.

(i) Parliamentary forms of address

The rules controlling the parliamentary forms of address are subject to a complex interplay of
socio-cultural constraints: the overall effect and significance of the institutional activity in which
the MPs are engaged, the nature of the institutionalised relationships (social distance and
dominance) between MPs, the extent to which MPs share a common set of cultural expectations
with respect to the social activity and the speech events that they are carrying out. While in non-
institutional settings politeness rules are just regulative and therefore provide more choice, in
institutional settings, such as the Parliament, they are constitutive and therefore discourse-
integrated.

In the House of Commons MPs are normally not addressed by their actual names, but by the
names of their constituency or by their official position. Most importantly, MPs are addressed
and address each other in the 3rd person singular through the intermediary of the Speaker of the
House, who acts as a moderator. Interestingly, the only parliamentary participant officially
addressed in the 2nd person is the Speaker or Deputy Speaker (the address form is “Sir” or
“Madam”). It is significant that the English 2nd person pronoun you may be used in two exactly
opposite cases in terms of politeness: on the one hand, as a positive address form indicator in
ritualistic politeness formulae used by MPs when addressing the Speaker of the House, and on
the other hand, as a negative address form indicator in the overt face threatening act of
interrupting speaking MPs.

The MPs in other parliaments, such as the French and the Italian parliaments, are normally
referred to by means of the 2nd person pronoun. The second person plural pronoun of address V
is used in many languages as a honorific form to singular respected or distant alters.

The ritualised form used in the Commons to address an MP is “the Honourable

Gentleman/Lady”. In Hansard, however, this phrase is expanded into the form “the Honourable
Member for Ockendon (Mr. Bloggs)” in order to avoid ambiguities. Two types of distinctions are
marked by specific parliamentary forms of address. A hierarchical distinction is involved in the
alternative uses of ”the Hon. Gentleman/Lady” (to refer to a junior and/or ordinary MP) and ”the
Right Hon. Gentleman/Lady” (to refer to a senior and/or high status MP). A political distinction
is conveyed by using one of the above-mentioned forms of address when referring to an MP that
belongs to another political party than one’s own, and by using the form ”my (Right) Hon.
Friend” when referring to an MP that belongs to one’s own party.
Different parliaments display different degrees of flexibility and constraint. For example,
interpersonal and strategic deference is conveyed in Swedish parliamentary discourse by a wider
range of devices, namely: title, first and last name, title and last name, and occasionally only first
name. The 3rd person pronoun is the officially acknowledged pronominal term of address in the
Swedish Riksdag, just as in the House of Commons, so it counts as the unmarked pronominal
address form. However, the use of the 2nd person pronoun ‘ni’ also occurs occasionally in the
Swedish debates (Ilie 2003d, 2005).

MPs are not expected to have a straightforward dialogue with each other, viz. to be engaged in a
genuine reasoning process or truth finding discussion. All MPs are fully aware of the fact that
they cannot realistically hope to persuade political opponents of the justifiability of their ideas
and beliefs. While addressing the current addressee(s), their interventions and arguments are
equally intended for all MPs in the House and for the wider (present or TV-viewing) audience.

(ii) Parliamentary roles and audiences

The institutional interaction of debating MPs reveals role shifts between their public roles as as
representatives of a part of the electorate and their private roles as members of the same
electorate they represent. The MPs who are taking the floor to address the House, as well as
those MPs who are being directly addressed and act as interlocutors, can be regarded as active
participants. The rest of the MPs who are not actually involved in the current debate can be
regarded as side participants. Other listeners, such as the Hansard reporters, the members of the
press, or members of the public at large present in the Strangers’ Gallery, can be regarded as
bystanders.

As a result of the increasing mediatisation of parliamentary proceedings, MPs perform a major

part of their work in “the public eye”, namely in front of several kinds of audiences made up of
politicians and/or laypersons. The onlooking audience is actually a multi-layered audience, i.e.
the insider audience of fellow MPs, the outsider audience of visitors in the Strangers’ Gallery,
and the more remote outsider audience of TV-viewers. As has been shown in Ilie (2003b), in
Parliament there is an awareness of and a tolerance for the audience of outsiders, but the targeted
audience is the insider audience of fellow MPs. No special effort is made to acknowledge the
presence of this audience of outsiders or to get their approval. One of the reasons may be the fact
that it is normally a random and continuously changing audience that happens to be in the
Strangers’ Gallery on a particular day at a particular time.

(3) Interaction frame in Parliament

The interaction between MPs is convention-based and rule-regulated. As instantiations of

individual and group confrontations, parliamentary debates display well-regulated competing,
but also collaborative discursive processes. As manifestations of collective undertakings,
parliamentary debates display, especially in matters of vital national importance, not only
adversarial interaction, but also converging and complementary discursive contributions that are
orchestrated institutionally and performed jointly.

Some of the most salient parliamentary interaction frames are described below.

(i) Openings and closings of parliamentary sessions

Parliamentary proceedings in the Commons are officially opened and closed by the Speaker of
the House, who also announces the topics of the agenda, intervening whenever these topics are
not properly followed. The first speech in a debate is called the Opening Speech. The MP who
has moved, or proposed, a particular motion outlines his/her view of why the House should adopt
the motion.

The State Opening of Parliament takes place after a General Election and at the beginning of
each new session of Parliament. On that occasion the Queen reads the Queen’s Speech. It is a
reminder of times when the King or Queen actually chose the legislation to be debated in
Parliament. Today the Government prepares the Queen’s speech. The speech details the
Government’s policies and the bills it will introduce in the next session.

(ii) Parliamentary turn-taking and talk-monitoring rules

The turn-taking structure of parliamentary interaction shows that linguistic constraints are
paralleled by institutional constraints. It is the Speaker of the House who ensures the
reinforcement of orderly interventions and the observance of parliamentary rules. S/he is in
charge of monitoring speaker selection and turn assignment, so that MPs take it in turns to speak
and present their standpoints in an orderly manner.

In the Commons parliamentary turn-taking is regulated not only by institutional conventions, but
also by the participants’ spontaneous verbal, paraverbal and non-verbal signalling. Paraverbal
signalling refers to the way in which a verbal message is conveyed by means of tone, pitch and
pacing of the voice. Since MPs may speak only if called to do so by the Speaker, they must try to
‘catch the Speaker’s eye’, i.e. to attract his/her attention by standing, or half standing.

(iii) Parliamentary interruptions

Another way of competing for the floor is to resort to ”authorised” verbal interruptions. The
orderly question-answer sequences can be disrupted by recurrent ”authorised” interruptions or
interventions by MPs who want to grab the floor. In principle, an MP cannot suddenly intervene
when another MP is speaking to the House unless the speaking MP allows it by “giving way”.
The interruption consists in asking the current speaker to ’give way’ so as to allow the
intervening MP to ask a question or make a comment.

Apart from ”authorised” interruptions, there are also unauthorised interruptions, namely
spontaneous verbal reactions of MPs who interrupt the current speaker. Such interruptions,
consist of exclamations of approval or disapproval, and are perceived as some of the particularly
distinctive characteristics of all parliamentary discourses. It is significant that several of the
exisiting studies on parliamentary discourse have focused on the analysis of interruptions. Carbó
(1992) gives a detailed account of the types of interruptions in the Mexican parliament, Cabasino
(2001) and Van der Valk (2002) describe interruptions in French debates on immigration, Ilie
(2004b) analyses and compares interruption patterns in British parliamentary debates and in
drama dialogue, while Bevitori (2004) compares the interruptions in British and Italian
parliamentary debates.

(iv) Parliamentary questioning/answering patterns

In all parliaments the question-response sequences represent the default adjacency pairs of
several parliamentary subgenres, such as oral/written questions and Question Time. They often
display exchanges of challenging, accusatory, but also countering, defensive and ironical,
remarks between Opposition MPs and Government MPs, as well as friendly and cooperative
questions from MPs belonging to the Government party. As has been shown in Chester and
Bowring (1962), Franklin and Norton (1993) and in Limon and McKay (1997), there are several
subtypes of parliamentary questions in terms of content, scope and purpose. These questions are
often multifunctional and convey different degrees of argumentativeness depending on their
specific contexts of occurrence. Thus, a frequent type of questions are the so-called partisan
questions that are asked not only to defend and reinforce the power of the Government, but also
to attack the Opposition. Another recurrent type of parliamentary questions are the attention
seeking questions, used particularly by backbenchers to gain attention and to acquire
information, as well as to contribute to local publicity. Nowadays an increasing number of
questions are being asked by MPs on behalf of lobbying and presssure groups, usually from their
own constituencies.

According to syntactic criteria, a vast majority of parliamentary questions belong to the closed
category of yes-no questions, which are meant to constrain the respondents’ answering options.
According to pragma-linguistic criteria, parliamentary questions often belong to the category of
rhetorical questions, leading questions and echo questions, which are confirmation-eliciting and
reaction-eliciting, rather than information-eliciting in that they single out and expose the
opponent’s weaknesses, often in an ironical or sarcastic tone.

(v) Parliamentary politeness strategies

As has been shown in Ilie (2001, 2003d, 2005) and Pérez de Ayala (2001), parliamentary debates
involve systematic face-threatening acts marked by unparliamentary language and behaviour.
These acts cover a continuum that ranges from milder/mitigated acts, such as reproaches,
accusations and criticisms, to very strong ones, such as insults. The study of unparliamentary
strategies provides important clues about moral and social standards, prejudices, taboos, as well
as value judgements of different social-political groups, as well as individuals in a community.

Cross-cultural studies are particularly enlightening in this respect, since the forms and functions
of insults and their respective feedbacks vary in different cultures and institutional settings.
Several aspects of the use and effects of unparliamentary language in the U.K. Parliament and in
the Swedish Riksdag have been examined from a politeness and cognitive theoretical perspective
(Ilie 2001), as well as from a rhetorical perspective (Ilie 2003d). One of the conclusions is that
“what is generally referred to as unparliamentary uses of language constitute instances of
institutionally ritualised confrontational interaction.” (Ilie 2003d: 81). The results of the
contrastive analysis indicate that English unparliamentary language is marked particularly by
pathos-oriented logos, whereas Swedish unparliamentary language is marked particularly by
ethos-oriented logos.

(vi) Parliamentary metadiscourse

Metadiscourse is a term generally used to indicate a shift in discourse levels, by means of which
the speaker’s multi-level messages are being conveyed alongside, above and/or beyond the
unfolding discourse. Parliamentary metadiscourse is used to highlight the co-occurrence and
confrontation of competing ideological and personal representations, on the one hand, and the
discursive interplay between the participants’ interpersonal and institutional voices, on the other.

Several metadiscursive strategies have been investigated in the British parliamentary discourse:
metadiscursive argumentation through the use and misuse of clichés (Ilie 2000), metadiscursive
attribution, reporting and quoting strategies (Ilie 2003a), and metadiscursive parentheticals (Ilie
2003b, 2003c).

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