Question Time is a distinctive daily parliamentary routine. Its aim is to hold
Ministers of the State accountable for the actions and decisions of the
Government. However, in many Parliaments, including the New Zealand and
Australian Federal Houses of Representatives, it is more of a theatrical
performance where parties try their best to score political points.
As any performance, Question Time is governed by certain rules and
regulations outlined in an official document Standing Orders. As there is not
much action, Standing Orders mainly describe language norms and specify
„unparliamentary language‟.
This research looks at and analyses the use of formulaic vocabulary used by
MPs in the year preceding general elections in New Zealand and Australia. The
formulaic language includes phrasal lexical items and formulae for asking /
answering questions, for raising points of order and the Speakers‟ idiolectal
phrasal vocabulary for quelling disorder in the Chambers and regulating the
work of the House.
The framework developed for this research consisted of the following steps: an
ethnographic study of Question Time as a communicative performance which
included the development of a database containing all the empirical material; a
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linguistic study of Question Time including genrelect study, parliamentary
formulae study and disorder analysis before the elections.
As a result this research has shown that Question Time is a communicative
performance event in New Zealand and Australia with significant cultural,
historic and linguistic differences in spite of the common origins of the two
Parliaments. It has identified 60 Question Time genre-specific phrasal lexical
items that MPs use in the two Parliaments, studied their structure and meaning
(where necessary). It has also looked at the strategies the MPs employ for
creating disorder in the House, and the ways of quelling disorder by the
Speakers of the two Parliaments.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:canterbury.ac.nz/oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/8720 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Loginova, Irina |
| Publisher | University of Canterbury. School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics |
| Source Sets | University of Canterbury |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic thesis or dissertation, Text |
| Rights | Copyright Irina Loginova, http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/thesis/etheses_copyright.shtml |
| Relation | NZCU |
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