Adversarial interaction in Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK

IF 1.8 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL

Journal of Social and Political Psychology Pub Date : 2023-12-06 DOI:10.5964/jspp.8099

Peter Bull, Maurice Waddle

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Politeness is a social norm but so too in certain contexts is impoliteness. One such situation is that of Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in the UK House of Commons. The event is notorious for its adversarial discourse, especially for the gladiatorial encounters between Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. Their encounters form the focus of this paper, in which, through the reporting of previous studies, we explore five distinctive features of PMQs discourse: face-threats, personal attacks, the rhetorical use of quotations, equivocation, and traditional forms of address; in a sixth study, we also discuss the potential political functions of adversarial opposition. Adversarial questioning is the norm of PMQs; it is the expected role of opposition leaders to scrutinise government policies and actions, and to call the government to account. Thereby, PMQs adversarialism can be seen to reflect the underlying social norms and evaluations of this highly distinctive social setting.

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英国首相质询中的对抗性互动

礼貌是一种社会规范，但在某些情况下也不礼貌。其中一种情况是英国下议院的首相提问(PMQs)。该活动因其对抗性话语而臭名昭著，特别是总理和反对派领导人之间的角斗士遭遇。他们的遭遇构成了本文的重点，通过对以往研究的报道，我们探讨了首相问答话语的五个显著特征:面对威胁、人身攻击、引语的修辞使用、含糊其辞和传统的称呼形式;在第六项研究中，我们还讨论了对抗性反对的潜在政治功能。对抗性提问是首相问答的常态;反对派领导人的职责是审查政府的政策和行动，并要求政府承担责任。因此，pmq的对抗性可以被视为反映了这种高度独特的社会环境的潜在社会规范和评价。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Social and Political Psychology Social Sciences-Sociology and Political Science

CiteScore

2.70

自引率

4.80%

发文量

审稿时长

40 weeks

期刊介绍： The Journal of Social and Political Psychology (JSPP) is a peer-reviewed open-access journal (without author fees), published online. It publishes articles at the intersection of social and political psychology that substantially advance the understanding of social problems, their reduction, and the promotion of social justice. It also welcomes work that focuses on socio-political issues from related fields of psychology (e.g., peace psychology, community psychology, cultural psychology, environmental psychology, media psychology, economic psychology) and encourages submissions with interdisciplinary perspectives. JSPP is comprehensive and integrative in its approach. It publishes high-quality work from different epistemological, methodological, theoretical, and cultural perspectives and from different regions across the globe. It provides a forum for innovation, questioning of assumptions, and controversy and debate. JSPP aims to give creative impetuses for academic scholarship and for applications in education, policymaking, professional practice, and advocacy and social action. It intends to transcend the methodological and meta-theoretical divisions and paradigm clashes that characterize the field of social and political psychology, and to counterbalance the current overreliance on the hypothetico-deductive model of science, quantitative methodology, and individualistic explanations by also publishing work following alternative traditions (e.g., qualitative and mixed-methods research, participatory action research, critical psychology, social representations, narrative, and discursive approaches). Because it is published online, JSPP can avoid a bias against research that requires more space to be presented adequately.