Expressing Commitment When Asking Multiunit Questions in Parliamentary Debates

Abstract

The present study investigates the expression of commitment in multiunit questions (MUQs), that is, questions consisting of several structural components, asked during British and Russian parliamentary debates. The discursive manifestations of two commitment types in the sequential organization of parliamentary questions are analyzed. First, institutional commitment is verbalized by means of several types of structural components employed by questioners to promote convincing legislative proposals and expose inefficient ones: backgrounders (e.g., opinions), metacomponents (e.g., signposting), intensifiers, and other types of components. Second, ingroup commitment is related to various components helping to promote members of Parliament's (MPs') party interests and discredit adversaries: evaluative turns (e.g., praises, reproaches), metacomponents (e.g., criticisms of answers), and other types of structural elements. In addition, some qualitative and quantitative differences in the expression of commitment in English and Russian are analyzed.

Keywords

commitment cross-cultural debates institutional discourse multiunit questions parliamentary debates sequential organization

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