Staged conflicts in Austrian parliamentary debates
This paper analyzes the rhetorical formats used by Austrian members of parliament (MPs) to express disagreement
with previous speakers during the so-called ‘inaugural speech debates’. During these debates, MPs position themselves publicly as
either government or opposition party representatives. Disagreeing with previous debate contributions represents a positioning
practice that focuses on the interpersonal plane of interaction. The strict procedural rules of the debates, however, prevent MPs
from engaging in genuine conflict talk. MPs rather use four rhetorical formats for signalling conflict with a previous speaker.
This paper analyzes these strategies as well as their use by different groups of MPs and discusses their face aggravating/
impoliteness potential. Finally, it relates the results to previous studies of face work in political discourse.
Article outline
- 1.An exceptional case: A genuine interpersonal conflict during a parliamentary debate
- 2.Interactional features of parliamentary debates
- 2.1Participation framework and face work aspects of parliamentary debates
- 2.2Institutional framework for Austrian parliamentary debates
- 2.3Consequences of situational factors for conflict communication during parliamentary debates
- 3.Data and methods
- 3.1Data
- 3.2Categories of analysis
- 4.Results
- 4.1Quantitative results
- 4.2Metapragmatic contrast
- 4.3Norm related metapragmatic critique
- 4.4Interpersonal metapragmatic critique
- 4.5Metapragmatic style critique
- 5.Discussion and conclusions
- Notes
-
References
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