Emotions in the aisles: Unpacking the use of emotive language in the UK House of Commons

Abstract

The use of emotive rhetoric in legislative debates has attracted increasing scholarly attention in political science research. Building on recent scholarship, I examine the conditions under which emotive rhetoric dominates legislative speeches in the UK House of Commons between 2001 and 2015. By coding nearly half a million legislative speeches according to Ekman's six basic emotions – anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise – I argue that members of parliament (MPs) strategically use emotions in their speeches to maximize their influence and visibility. The findings reveal modest but discernible effects related to electoral safety, seniority and party status. Specifically, the results show that speeches by electorally vulnerable, junior and opposition MPs contain higher levels of emotive language compared to those by other MPs. Notably, despite considerable similarity in the correlates of individual emotion categories, there are also significant differences. For example, opposition MPs and electorally vulnerable MPs rely more heavily on negative emotions such as anger, disgust, fear and sadness than government MPs and electorally safer MPs. While junior MPs use fear, sadness and surprise at higher rates compared to their senior counterparts, they are statistically indistinguishable from senior MPs in their use of anger, disgust and joy. Overall, these results underscore the need for greater scholarly attention to the communication styles of representatives in legislatures and emphasize the importance of examining the nuanced strategies behind the use of different types of emotions.