"The Power of Words: Some Notes on the Language of Political Discourse in an Exchange from a Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) Session"

Abstract

The paper dwells on the language of a political dialogue between two members of the UK Parliament in the House of Commons during the weekly event called Prime Minister’s Questions, which took place on the 29th March 2023. At the time, standing in for the Prime Minister was the Conservative Deputy Prime Minster, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Dominic Raab; the other MP is Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Angela Rayner. The present analysis highlights textual and linguistic features of the discourse from several points of view: that of register, pragmatic and semantic, lexico-grammatical, rhetorical and stylistic. The verbal exchange is heated, with an intensely dramatic effect, with all the elements converging towards the conative function of communication, as the public is meant to be drawn to one side or the other of the political agenda.