A corpus-based investigation of selected pragmatic politeness features used during Question Time in the national parliament of Ireland Declan O’Donnell University of Limerick i A corpus-based investigation of selected pragmatic politeness features used during Question Time in the national parliament of Ireland Declan O’Donnell University of Limerick Supervisor: Doctor David Atkinson, University of Limerick External Examiners: Professor Jonathan Culpeper, Lancaster University Professor Jeffrey Kallen, Trinity College Dublin This dissertation is the original work of the author, and it has not, in full or in part, been previously submitted to this or any other institution Submitted to the University of Limerick, November 27th, 2013 ii Acknowledgments There are a number of people who I wish to thank for helping me to complete this project over the last 5 years. Firstly, and most importantly, thank you to Dr David Atkinson for supervising me so patiently and so thoroughly, and for being so understanding at various points in this process. His advice, knowledge and constructive criticism have played a major part in shaping this study from 2008 up to submission. A very sincere thank you also to Dr Helen Kelly-Holmes and Dr Fiona Farr, who have found time in their busy schedules to offer advice and support at crucial times. Thank you also to the external examiners, Professor Jeffrey Kallen and Professor Jonathan Culpeper for their thorough examination and helpful suggestions. Thank you to the staff of the Debates Office in Dáil Eireann, who were extremely generous with their time during 2009 and 2010, and thank you to Dr Thomas Byrne (NUI Maynooth) for his advice about the Irish political system. Thank you to the staff and students at Meisei University, Hino, Japan, for their support and encouragement from 2008 to 2011. In particular, thank you to Akie Sekine, Hiroshi Takii, Mami Shimizu, Noriko Shigehara, and Dr John Ingulsrud. Thank you to the staff and students at UL Language Centre for being so flexible and helpful when I was faced with deadlines, conferences and other PhD-related events. Thank you to Debbie Thompson, Joan O’Grady, and Joan O’Sullivan in particular. I would like to acknowledge the financial and academic support of the LLCC school in UL. Thank you to Professor Angela Chambers and everybody associated with CALS, who were a great help. Thank you especially to Dr Elaine Riordan, Dr Freda Mishan, Niamh Lenehan, Margaret Healy and Dr Frédéric Royall. Thank you also to Professor Steve Walsh (Newcastle University) and Professor Tony McEnery (Lancaster University) and everybody involved at IVACS. Finally, a special thank you to my family and friends, without whose support and encouragement I could never have completed this thesis. Thank you to Mam and Dad, and to Karl and Colette. A very special thank you to the following friends, who were particularly supportive during the last five years; Hana Craig, Kanako Noto, Michael Boustany and Olan Walsh. iii This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my late father, Kevin O’Donnell, whose belief in the value of education inspired me to complete this research. iv A corpus-based investigation of some pragmatic politeness features utilised during Question Time in the national parliament of Ireland This research investigates some politeness features used by Irish politicians during Question Time (QT) in the national parliament of Ireland, through the prism of some corpus linguistics tools and an examination of some aspects of facework utilised in that setting. It also investigates the feasibility of building a corpus from data drawn from the official parliamentary record in Ireland. The study draws on approaches and theories from politeness theory, language variation and pragmatics to frame the analysis of six months of Dáil QTs, providing a database of 950,000 words of transcribed data, which is examined using quantitative and qualitative corpus-based techniques. The guiding question is to determine how the use of certain politeness features and strategies in Dáil Eireann differ from usage of the same features and strategies in a comparable parliamentary setting, the House of Commons in London, focusing in depth on two specific features; the use of “please” and “thank you”, and the use of “yes” and “no” in response to questions. The analysis begins by investigating through a preliminary study the linguistic accuracy of the official Dáil transcripts which are made available to the public on the www.oireachtas.ie website. This study is supplemented by interviews with key personnel in the production of the Official Report. From this initial study it is noted that certain politeness strategies during QT (such as the use of modal verbs, and the use of terms of address) are unsuitable for analysis through a corpus linguistics framework. Caution should be used when using official parliamentary transcripts for linguistic analysis, while linguists (particularly corpus linguists) should choose carefully which linguistic items to study when availing of this data. Having isolated certain politeness features which are amenable to corpus analysis, these features are then examined using corpus-linguistics techniques, including word lists and concordances. Results of the corpus-based dimension of this research show that a view of lexical features as simple politeness markers seem to be inadequate when accounting for the complexity of usage of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in both the national parliaments of Ireland and Britain. A range of factors (including sentence structure, topic under discussion and speakers’ ideological views) need to be considered. Following the corpus-based examination, extracts from the Irish and British corpora were examined in detail, with a particular focus on two aspects of facework, FTAs and positive v politeness strategies. 24 QT exchanges (12 from the Irish setting and 12 from the British setting) are examined in detail, in order to identify some aspects of facework used in this setting. Results of this aspect of the investigation indicate that politicians use a mixture of strategies during QT, including talking up their own positive face, ignoring FTAs, mitigating techniques and self-justification. Face-threatening acts (FTAs) occur with similar frequency in the Irish and British settings, but there is a greater preponderance of positive politeness strategies in the Irish setting. Possible reasons for this difference are discussed. Results of all three aspects of this research are then integrated. It is argued that Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory can provide useful insights into discourse practices during QT, but this should be supplemented with impoliteness research (particularly Jonathan Culpeper’s work), and the concept of ostensible mitigation (Link and Kreuz), to provide a more rounded picture of how these politeness features are utilised in both the Irish and British setting. It is seen that a Communities of Practice approach can help to identity what is sanctioned by institutional norms, and when these norms are violated. Implications for future research in the areas of parliamentary discourse and politeness studies are discussed, as are the implications for future research in the area of Irish English. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction __________________________________________________ 1 1.1 Aim and scope of the study _________________________________________________ 1 1.1.1 The research questions _________________________________________________________ 3 1.1.2 Structure and contents of the thesis _______________________________________________ 4 1.1.3 Overview of the research methodology ____________________________________________ 7 1.1.4 The limitations of the study ____________________________________________________ 8 1.1.5 Software used in the research __________________________________________________ 11 1.1.6 Ethical and copyright issues ___________________________________________________ 12 1.2 Overview of the Irish political context ______________________________________ 14 1.2.1 The Irish political system _____________________________________________________ 14 1.2.2 Question Time (QT) in Ireland _________________________________________________ 17 1.2.3 Differences between QT in Ireland and Britain _____________________________________ 18 1.3 The QTC corpora _______________________________________________________ 21 1.3.1 Corpus size and representativeness ______________________________________________ 23 Chapter 2 Theoretical background and framework ___________________________ 24 2.1 Politeness theory ________________________________________________________ 25 2.1.1 Introduction and background to politeness theory ___________________________________ 25 2.1.2 Speech Act Theory __________________________________________________________ 27 2.1.3 Brown and Levinson _________________________________________________________ 29 2.1.4 Post Brown and Levinson _____________________________________________________ 31 2.1.5 Impoliteness ________________________________________________________________ 32 2.1.6 ‘Reasonable hostility’ and the importance of context ________________________________ 34 2.2 Communities of Practice __________________________________________________ 37 2.2.1 Parliament as a community of practice ___________________________________________ 38 2.3 The Politeness framework used in this study _________________________________ 41 2.4 Corpus Linguistics _______________________________________________________ 42 2.4.1