(Im)politeness during Prime Minister’s Questions in the U.K. Parliament

James Murphy

doi:10.1075/ps.5.1.04mur

Abstract

Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) is a weekly, half-hour long session in the British House of Commons, which gives backbench Members of Parliament (MPs) and the Leader of the Opposition (LO) the opportunity to ask the Prime Minister (PM) questions on any topic relating to the government’s policies and actions. The discourse at PMQs is often described as adversarial (see Bull & Wells 2011) and in this paper I will show how the notion of impoliteness can be applied to both the questions and the answers which make up the session. Through the detailed analysis of six sessions of PMQs I will also demonstrate that PMQs is also a source of polite linguistic behaviour of the sort described in Brown & Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory. Comparisons between Gordon Brown’s and David Cameron’s speech styles will also be drawn.

Highlights

How MPs produce face-threatening acts (FTAs)I think that it is safe to assert that this is because government MPs do not want to come into conflict with the Prime Minister (PM) (as to do so would hinder their chances of progression in the party), and because MPs are aware that a divided party does not play well to the public
Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) is a weekly, half-hour long session in the British House of Commons, which gives backbench Members of Parliament (MPs) and the Leader of the Opposition (LO) the opportunity to ask the Prime Minister (PM) questions on any topic relating to the government’s policies and actions
It seems clear that the House of Commons (HoC) fulfils these criteria, as MPs are mutually engaged: they work together closely, form alliances, dine together, etc.; they work on the jointly negotiated enterprise of improving the lot of the country; MPs do share a repertoire, one which has been described in Erskine May (2004) – often described as the Bible for MPs

Summary

How MPs produce FTAs

I think that it is safe to assert that this is because government MPs do not want to come into conflict with the PM (as to do so would hinder their chances of progression in the party), and because MPs are aware that a divided party does not play well to the public. These factors explain why there is such a low rate of impolite utterances in this group. I would suggest that this is because the backbenchers still have constituency problems which could be resolved by the PM; asking for help impolitely in these instances would be unlikely to make the PM support their cause

Use of mitigation strategies

Use of impoliteness strategies

The relationship between question and response

Findings

Conclusion