The politics of questioning: Aspects of UK and Ghanaian parliamentary question types
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4314/gjl.v11i1.485Keywords:
questions, parliamentary questions, direct and indirect interrogatives, tellex yes/no interrogativesAbstract
In spite of the many authoritative classifications of questions, the examination of questions in different institutional contexts continues to generate new and interesting insights into the nature of questions. Research shows that question forms and functions substantially differ in institutional contexts such as courtroom, classroom, medical and political/parliamentary contexts. Using data from the UK Prime Minister’s Questions and Ghanaian Minister’s Questions, this paper explores UK and Ghanaian parliamentary questions. Based on the contextual properties of parliamentary questions, the paper categorises questions into independent/direct yes/no interrogatives, independent/direct wh-interrogatives, independent/direct alternate interrogatives, dependent/indirect wh-interrogatives and multiple interrogatives. The Ghanaian data contain two additional question forms, namely, dependent/indirect yes/no interrogatives and dependent/indirect alternate interrogatives. The paper further indicates that the major difference between UK and Ghanaian parliamentary questions is indirect yes/no interrogatives with mental process verbs. Again, using what I call tellex (tell, explain) yes/no questions, I argue that indirectness is a key feature of parliamentary questions, as it reflects the adversarial and ideological nature of parliamentary discourse. I argue that the tellex questions are used as strategies and tactics for political point-scoring.
References
Adika, G.S.K. 2012. English in Ghana: Growth, Tensions, and Trends. International Journal of Language, 1(1), 151-166.
Ahmed, M. F. 2012. A discoursal approach to categorising questions in English legal settings. College of Basic Education Researches
Journal, 11(3), 796-815.
Anderson, J.A. 2006. Request forms in English in Ghana. Legon Journal of the Humanities, Vol. XVII, 75-103.
Anderson, J.A. 2009. Polite Requests in non-native varieties of English: The case of Ghanaian English. Linguistica Atlantica, 30, 59-86.
Antaki, C. and A. Kent. 2012. Telling people what to do (and, sometimes, why): Contingency, entitlement and explanation in staff
requests to adults with intellectual impairments. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 876-889.
Archer, D. 2005. Questions and Answers in the English Courtroom (1640-1760). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Biber, D., Conrad, S. and Leech, G. 2002. The Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. and Finegan, E. 1999. Grammar of Spoken and Written English. England: Pearson
Education.
Bird, K. 2005. Gendering parliamentary questions. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 7(3), 353-370.
Bloor, T. and Bloor, M. 2004. The Functional Analysis of English. London: Arnold.
Chang, Y-Y. 2012. The use of questions by professors in lectures given in English: Influences of disciplinary cultures. English for Specific
Purposes 31(2), 103-116.
Clayman, S. 2010. Questions in broadcast journalism. In: Freed, A.F. and Ehrlich, S. (eds.). “Why Do You Ask?” The Function of Questions
in Institutional Discourse (pp.256- 278). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Downing, A. and P. Locke. 2006. English Grammar: A University Course (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Drew, P. and T. Walker. 2010. Citizen’s emergency calls: requesting assistance in calls to the police. In Coulthard, M. and Johnson, A.
(eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics (pp.95-110). London: Routledge.
Freed, A.F. 1994. The form and function of questions in informal dyadic conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 21, 621-644.
Gabbert, F., Hope, L., La Rooy, D., McGregor, A., Ellis, T. and Milne, R. (2016). Introducing a PEACE-compliant “Structured Interview
Protocol” to enhance the quality of investigative interviews. Paper presented at the 9th annual conference of the international
investigative interviewing research group (IIIRG), London, UK.
Gibbons, J. 2003. Forensic Linguistics: An Introduction to Language in the Justice System. UK: Blackwell.
Gibbons, J. 2008. Questioning in common criminal law courts. In Gibbons, J. and Turell, M. T. (eds.), Dimensions of Forensic Linguistics.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
Grzyb, K. 2011. On Power in the Workplace. Doctoral Dissertation, Uniwien.
Jameel, M.M., R.T.K. Al-Ameedi and S.M.H. Al-Shukri. 2013. A pragmatic study of rhetorical questions in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and
Hamlet. Basic Education College Magazine for Educational and Humanities Sciences, 14, 574-597.
Hall, P. 2008. Policespeak. In Gibbons, J. and Turell, M. T. (eds.), Dimensions of Forensic Linguistics (pp.67-94). Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd ed.). London: Arnold.
Dickson, D. and Hargie, O. 2006. Questioning. In Hargie, O. (ed.), The Handbook of Communication Skills (3rd ed.) (pp.121-146). London:
Routledge.
Harris, S. 2001. Being politically impolite: Extending politeness theory to adversarial political discourse. Discourse & Society, 12(4), 451-
Hengeveld, K. 1988. Illocution, mood and modality in a functional grammar of Spanish. Journal of Semantics, 6, 227-269.
Heritage, J. 2010. Questioning in medicine. In Freed, A.F. and Ehrlich, S. (eds.), “Why Do You Ask?” The Function of Questions in
Institutional Discourse (pp.42-68). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heritage, J. and Robinson, J.D. 2011. ‘Some’ vs ‘any’ medical issues: encouraging patients to reveal their unmet concerns. In Antaki, C.
(ed.), Applied Conversation Analysis: Changing Institutional Practices (pp.15-31). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Heritage, J.C. and Roth, A.L. 1995. Grammar and institution: questions and questioning in the broadcast news interview. Research on
Language and Social Interaction, 28(1), 1-60.
Holmes, J. and Chiles, T. 2010. “Is that right?” Questions and questioning as control devices in the workplace. In: Freed, A.F. and Ehrlich,
S. (eds.), “Why Do You Ask?” The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse (pp.187-210). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
House of Commons, 2013. Parliamentary Questions: Brief Guide. Parliament: House of Commons Information Office.
Huddleston, R. and G. K. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hymes, D. 1974. Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. New York: Routledge.
Ilie, C. 1994. What else can I tell you? A pragmatic study of English rhetorical questions as discursive and argumentative acts.
Stockholm, Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Ilie, C. 1995. The validity of rhetorical questions as arguments in the courtroom. In van Eemeren, F. H., Grootendorst, R., Blair, J. A., and
Willard, C. A. (eds.), Special fields and cases: Proceedings of the third international conference on argumentation (pp. 73-88).
Amsterdam: SICSAT.
Heritage, J. 2002. The limits of questioning: Negative interrogatives and hostile question content. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 1427-1446.
Ilie, C. 2006. Parliamentary discourse. In Brown, K. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.), Vol. 9, 188-197. Oxford:
Elsevier.
Ilie, C. 2010a. Speech acts and rhetorical practices in parliamentary question time. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique. 4, 333-342.
Ilie, C. 2010b. Introduction. In Ilie, C. (ed.), European Parliaments under Scrutiny: Discourse Strategies and Interaction Practices (pp.1-25).
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Ilie, C. 2015. Questions and questioning. In Tracy, K., Ilie, C., and Sandel, T. (eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Language and
Social Interaction (pp.1-15). DOI: 10.1002/9781118611463/wbielsi202.
Koshik, I. 2010. Questions that convey information in teacher-student conferences. In: Freed, A.F. and Ehrlich, S. (eds.), “Why Do You
Ask?” The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse (pp.159-186). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Leech, G. and J. Svartvik. 1994. A Communicative Grammar of English (2nd ed.). UK: Longman.
Luchjenbroers, J. 1997. ‘In your own words…’: Questions and answers in Supreme Court trial. Journal of Pragmatics, 27, 477-503.
Miller, E.L. 1993. Questions that Matter: An Invitation to Philosophy. US: McGraw-Hill. Oxburgh, G. E., Myklebust, T. and Grant, T. (2010).
The question of question types in police interviews: A review of the literature from a psychological and linguistic perspective.
International Journal of Speech, Language & the Law, 17(1), 45– 66.
Oxford English Dictionary (online). December 2014. Oxford University Press. Available from: http://0-www.oed.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/
view/Entry/44598
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.
Raymond, G. 2010. Grammar and social relations: Alternative forms of yes/no-type initiating actions in health visitor interactions. In: Freed, A.F. and Ehrlich, S. (eds.). “Why Do You Ask?” The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse (pp.87-107). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Sánchez-G.D. 2020. Mapping lecturer questions and their pedagogical goals in Spanish-and English-medium instruction. Journal of
Immersion and Content-Based Language Education, 8(1), 28-52.
Author. 2016. Questioning and Debating in UK and Ghanaian Parliamentary Discourse. Doctoral dissertation, University of Leeds.
Author. 2018. Question design and the rules of questioning in UK Prime Ministers questions and Ghanaian ministers questions.
Abibisem: Journal of African Culture and Civilization, 7, 51-88.
Shatz, M., Wellman, H.M. and Silber, S. 1983. The acquisition of mental verbs: a systematic investigation of the first reference to mental
state. Cognition, 14, 301-321.
Simpson, J. 2013. Introduction: applied linguistics in the contemporary world. In Simpson, J. (ed.), The Rutledge Handbook of Applied
Linguistics (pp.1-7). London: Routledge.
Tkačuková, T. 2010a. Cross-examination questioning: lay people as cross- examiners. In Coulthard, M. and Johnson, M. (eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics (pp.333-346). London: Routledge.
Tkačuková, T. 2010b. Cross-examination questioning: lay people as cross- examiners[online] [Accessed: 12 November 2013].
Available from: www.forensiclinguistics.net.
Thornborrow, J. 2011. Questions, control and the organisation of talk in calls to a radio phone- in. Discourse Studies, 3(1), 119-143.
Tsui, A. 1992. A functional description of questions. In: Coulthard, M. (ed.), Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis (pp.89-110). London:
Routledge.
Wilson, J. 1990. Politically Speaking: the Pragmatic Analysis of Political Language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Kwabena Sarfo-Kantankah
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The Ghana Journal of Linguistics is published by the Linguistics Association of Ghana, P. O. Box LG 61, Legon, Accra, Ghana.
LAG Email: linguisticsgh@gmail.com. Website: http://www.laghana.org
GJL Email: gjl@laghana.org Website: http://www.laghana.org/gjl
© Linguistics Association of Ghana and individual authors, 2023.