Gender Sensitivity in Parliamentary Discourse an Appraisal Approach

Abstract

The call for gender equality has taken the world by storm in all facets of life. This study explores four gender-themed parliamentary debates for appraisal and evaluative language. The study was prompted by the increasing importance of parliaments in today's world and the role they play in shaping decisions that affect society. The appraisal theory has been used to analyze the evaluative language that was used by parliamentarians in gender themed parliamentary debates with the aim of finding out if members of parliament conform to the dictates of these instruments or if the appraisal and evaluative resources they use render them as gender sensitive or not. The corpus of the study has been four gender-themed parliamentary debates which were taken from the national assembly Hansard of 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, respectively. The study has concluded that there are mixed views in parliament with regards to gender equality and this is reflected in the presentations by the different speakers. Some members of parliament are gender sensitive while some are still insensitive.