Redundancy in parliamentary political discourse

7 Redundancy in parliamentary political discourse Gloria Álvarez-Benito and Isabel Mª Íñigo-Mora (Universidad de Sevilla) [email protected] Abstract This paper is aimed at analysing the use of redundancy in Oral Questions in the Andalusian Parliament. The corpus is made up of 12 oral questions raised by the two main political parties at the Committee for Equality and Social Welfare. Six questions were raised by men and six by women. The study focuses on the identification of the most relevant functions of redundancy, as well as on the analysis of gender differences and differences between the two main political parties. Some of the devices studied in this paper are: anaphora, epistrophe, anadiplosis, epanalepsis, amplification, scesis onomaton, polysyndeton, hyperonymy, holonymy, synonymy, oppositeness. 1 Introduction It is widely known that politicians use a highly rhetorical style and for that reason their discourse has been studied by numerous authors (Bull and Mayer 1993, Chilton 2002, Ilie 2003, etc.). However, we cannot find so many studies focused on possible gender differences (Childs and Krook, 2006, Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995, Kathlene 1994, Lovenduski and Norris 2003, Rosenthal, 1997 etc.). Our goal here is to analyse all the possible differences and/or similarities among politicians of different gender and of different political colour in a parliamentary setting attending to the use they make of redundancy. Specifically, we will focus on all the parliamentary sessions that took place in the Andalusian Parliament from the 10th of March till the 22nd of September 2010, which makes a total of 5 sessions. This term of office (2008-2012) is especially interesting because a very important law was passed: the Parity Law (3/2007). In this way, we could be sure that there is equality in terms of gender in this Committee and, consequently, the results will not be due to a higher proportion of men (as has always been the case in previous terms of office). The composition of the Andalusian Parliament after the 2008 Elections was as shown in Figure 1: 8 FIGURE 1 Composition of the Andalusian Parliament after the 2008 Elections Our study focuses on Oral Questions in the Committee for Equality and Social Welfare. There is no doubt that this is the most lively and rhetorical task of all parliamentary actions. In this paper, we analyse three different discursive mechanisms: (1) simple and complex repetition, (2) rhetorical repetitions, and (3) reiterations. We will focus on differences and/or similarities taking into account (a) gender and political colour of the MP; and (b) the discursive position (ie. first or second question-answer turn). 2 Redundancy as a discursive strategy In a very general sense, redundancy implies saying the same thing more than once by using either the same words or different words. The term redundancy is being used here to refer to two different discursive strategies, repetition and reiteration. In repetition the same word or words are used within the same sentence or in consecutive sentences. The function of this strategy is twofold: on the one hand, a word or idea is given more prominence and, on the other hand, a connection between sentences is established, achieving cohesion within the text. As pointed out by Aristotle in his Rhetoric, this communicative device is more typically used in spoken discourse than in written discourse. In contrast, in spoken discourse, the use of repetition is much more extended, mainly because of its dramatic effect. Two different types of repetition can be distinguished: 1. Simple repetition: repetition of the same word or words while maintaining the same grammatical category, although differences regarding number, tense, gender, etc. can be found (city/cities). 2. Complex repetition: the same lexemes are used but with different grammatical categories (young/youth). 9 Sometimes the repetition of words, either simple or complex, takes place in a more elaborate structure, with the aim of attaining higher communicative impact. This is what will be referred to as rhetorical repetition. In contrast to simple or complex repetition, the use of this strategy is also extended to written discourse, since it involves a more elaborate and complex structure. Some of the devices included within rhetorical repetition are the following: 1. Anaphora: repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of clauses. 2. Epiphora or epistrophe: the opposite to anaphora, since it is the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of clauses. 3. Anadiplosis or conduplicatio: repetition of the last word or group of words of a clause or sentence at the beginning of the next sentence or clause. 4. Epanalepsis: repetition of the initial word or group of words of a clause or sentence at the end of the next clause or sentence. Repetition is also used as a strategy to add information, or to expand the meaning of a word with the idea of increasing its rhetorical effect. This device is known as amplification. Another rhetorical device that implies repetition is scesis onomaton: a word or idea is emphasized by expressing it in a string of generally synonymous phrases. Although any number of synonymous expressions can be used, the most effective type is a string of three (called tricolon). At the phonetic level, repetition is termed alliteration, which is the recurrence of consonant sounds (sometimes they can also be vowels), generally in initial word position or coinciding with stressed syllables. This paper will not focus on the analysis of alliteration, as it is not relevant in our corpus. At the syntactic level, the same syntactic structure is sometimes repeated in subsequent sentences, clauses or phrases. In some cases, the elements are repeated in the same order (parallelism), in some other cases a reverse order is preferred (chiasmus). Repetition is closely related to reiteration. The main difference between them being that in reiteration, the second or subsequent terms are not simple or complex repetitions of the first term but a word which is semantically connected with the first one. Sometimes the relation found between terms is one of hyperonymy/hyponymy (government/democracy), or synonymy (subjective/partial), or a relation of holonymy/meronymy (triangle/angle), or even a relation of oppositeness (good/bad). The function of these devices is to emphasize or give prominence to a word or idea. 10 3 Parliamentary Committees The Andalusian Parliament is the legislature of the Spanish Autonomous Community of Andalusia, and is elected every four years. It consists of 109 members (Figure I) and it is composed of three Parliamentary Groups: PSOE, with 56 MPs; PP, with 47 MPs; and IU, with 6 MPs. The two main organs of the Parliament are Full Sessions and Committees. The Full Session is a general meeting of all the members of the House. Committees are specialized in certain areas and the number of members is proportional to the number of MPs in the House. Every political party has the right to have at least one member on every Committee. Committees can be permanent or non-permanent. While permanent Committees can pass or defeat a bill, non-permanent Committees are created for something ad hoc and have a fixed duration. 4 Corpus The corpus analyzed in this paper is made up of the Parliamentary Records of the Committee for Equality and Social Welfare in the Andalusian Parliament, from the 10th of March to the 22nd of September 2010. Our goal was to study differences and similarities in the use of repetitions and reiterations among parliamentarians of the same and/or different political party. For this reason we decided to focus on the most lively and spontaneous task: oral questions. In all oral questions we can differentiate two sections: the first one corresponds to the question asked by the parliamentarian (it has been previously prepared and it is written) and the Regional however, is less formal and more similar to common oral language. In this paper we always tried to choose 3 questions made by men and 3 questions made by women from the three parliamentary groups. In this way, the corpus would be made up of a total of 18 questions. However, it was impossible to include any question from IU because we only found two questions but they were withdrawn. For this reason we selected: (1) 3 men and 3 women MPs from the Socialist Party, PSOE; and (2) 3 11 5 Results and Discussion As mentioned earlier in this paper, some of the most important discursive functions of repetition are: 1. To emphasize or give more prominence to a word or idea. 2. To establish a cohesive relation between sentences in discourse. However, after a complete analysis of our corpus, the previous functions prove not to be the only ones. For example, some parliamentarians make use of redundancy as a dummy device or filler of a pause, in most cases in order to make time to think about what to say: , no le quepa ninguna duda que vamos a actuar, ninguna, ninguna, ninguna, señora Obrero. Ahora, también me gustaría decir una cosa. Me llama poderosamente la atención... Yo no tengo por qué poner en duda lo que usted ha manifestado. (8-10/POC-000628, Mrs. Navarro, September 2010) [no doubt that we are going to act, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, Mrs Obrero. Now, I would about what you have said.] Some parliamentarians repeat words that have been previously used by the person in the preceding turn as a signal of the connection between the two pieces of discourse. One erally raised to get any answer but with other purposes. When the MP who asks the oral question is from the Government party, his/her question turn is generally intended to praise a particular action of the Government and allow the RM to show off with a propaganda speech previously prepared for the occasion. In contrast, when the MP who asks the oral question is from the party in opposition, then his turn will mainly be intended to criticize what the government has done, without taking much care of or being It has also been found out that repetition and reiteration are used as devices that contribute to reinforcing the soundness of argumentation. The words more typically used with this function are obviously of course, evidently no doubt typical word or expression he/she uses with the intention of making his/her argument a sound evidently) continuously, as shown in her following turn, answering an oral question raised by Mr Armijo (PP): Señor Armijo, decirle que, evidentemente, es cierto, y donde hay un compromiso, evidentemente, de concierto de plazas para que estas personas, ... (8-10/POC-000367, Mrs. Navarro, September 2010) 12 [Mr. Armijo, to tell you that, obviously, it is true, and there is a compromise, obviously, of agreed posts so that these people, ...] Sometimes, what is repeated is not a lexical but a syntactic combination, or clause structure or sentence form, which has a significant effect on the final speech: ¿está terminada la unidad de estancia diurna? Si está terminada, ¿por qué no está funcionando? ¿Está equipada, señora Consejera? ¿Qué forma de gestión va a tener? ¿La va a gestionar directamente la Consejería para la Igualdad y Bienestar Social, o se va a sacar a concurso porque se va a hacer una gestión externa? En suma, señora Consejera, qué pasa con la unidad de estancia diurna de Poniente. (8- 10/POC-000446, Sra. Botella, junio de 2010) [Is the unity of daytime stay over? If it is over, why is it not working? Is it equipped, Mrs Minister? What way of management will it have? Will it be managed directly by the Committee for Equality and Social Welfare or will there be a selection process in order to decide if there would be external management? To sum up, Mrs. Minister, what happens with the unity of daytime stay in Poniente.] Mrs Botella has used five consecutive interrogative sentences (five direct questions and an indirect question at the end). It has also been observed that politicians make many unnecessary repetitions in order to mark gender differences. citizens In some cases, this gender distinction may be necessary because of the context, but in most cases there is an overuse of the distinction. When a speaker uses the plural of the previous nouns in Spanish, these nouns refer both to males and females: Los andaluces y las andaluzas somos unos artistas de la compatibilización. (8-10/POC-000446, Sra. Botella, junio de 2010) [We male Andalusians and female Andalusians are artists of the reconciliation.] - olitical reasons, often demagogic, since there are no linguistic reasons to mark gender differences, as stated by the Real Academia Española. In relation to the of repetition and reiteration, our results reveal that there is a relationship between the parliamentarian political colour and the type of discursive strategies he/she has used. PP MPs prefer rhetorical repetition (59) better than 13 simple/complex repetition (41) and reiteration (23), whereas PSOE MPs use practically the same number of rhetorical and simple/complex repetitions (24 vs. 25). Both the total of repetitions and reiterations seem to be much higher in the case of PP than in PSOE, but the number of words used by the opposition is also higher. While PP male parliamentarians used up to 35 cases of rhetorical repetitions, PSOE male parliamentarians only used 9. And the same happened with female parliamentarians, PP parliamentarians uttered 24 and PSOE parliamentarians only 16 (Figure 2): etition However, taking into account the number of words used by MPs, it can be noticed that it is only male PP MPs that use more redundancy than male PSOE MPs (1/80 words versus 1/112w). However, it is the other way round in the case of women, the proportion being 1/106w for female PP MPs and 1/67w for female PSOE MPs. In the case of the PP, the differences between male and female parliamentarians are obvious (Table 1): Men Women Anaphora 12 (1/233w) 3 (1/846w) Epiphora 2 (1/1403w) 0 Anadiplosis 3 (1/936w) 1 (1/2538w) Epanalepsis 1 (1/2807w) 1 (1/2538w) Amplification 6 (1/468w) 10 (1/254w) Scesis onomaton 11 (1/255w) 3 (1/846w) Polysyndeton 0 6 (1/423w) TOTAL 35 (1/80words) 24 (1/106words) Table 1: rhetorical repetition 14 Concerning PSOE male and female MPs, results are the following (Table 2): Men Women Anaphora 3 (1/300w) 3 (1/360w) Epiphora 0 1 (1/1079w) Anadiplosis 0 3 (1/360w) Epanalepsis 1 (1/900w) 1 (1/1079w) Amplification 1 (1/900w) 3 (1/360w) Scesis onomaton 2 (1/450w) 3 (1/360w) Polysyndeton 2 (1/450w) 2 (1/540w) TOTAL 9 (1/100words) 16 (1/67words) Table 2: rhetorical repetition Additionally, the number of rhetorical repetitions used by PSOE female parliamentarians (except in the case of anaphora, epanalepsis and polysyndeton) is higher than the number of rhetorical repetitions used by PSOE male parliamentarians (1/67w vs. 1/100w), the opposite to what happens when comparing PP male (1/80w) and PP female parliamentarians (1/106w). As regards reiterations, the tendency is more cases in PSOE (1/141w) than in PP (1/232w). But they have something in common: women of both political parties used reiterations more often than men (Table 3). PP PSOE Men Women Men Women Hyperonymy 3 (1/936w) 1 (1/2538w) 1 (1/900w) 0 Holonymy 0 2 (1/1269w) 0 0 Synonymy 6 (1/468w) 8 (1/317w) 5 (1/180w) 8 (1/135w) Oppositeness 2 (1/1404w) 1 (1/2538w) 0 0 TOTAL 11 (1/255words) 12 (1/212words) 6 (1/150words) 8 (1/135words) Table 3: reiteration The most common mechanism of reiteration we have found is synonymy. In the following extract we can see an example of the PSOE parliamentarian Mrs. Pérez (oral question about subsidies to women): Y mucho de lo que se ha logrado y se ha conquistado ha sido, sin duda, gracias a la existencia de esas ayudas públicas, de esas subvenciones, que son el paso de emprender y de formar su propia empresa y crear y generar empleo. (8-10/POC-000180, señora Pérez, mayo 2010) 15 [And much of what has been conquered and achieved has been, no doubt, thanks to the existence of those public grants, of those subsidies, which are the step to undertake and set up their own firms create and generate new jobs.] We can find up to four instances of synonymy: conquered and achieved ; of those public grants, of those subsidies ; to start and to set up their own business ; and create and generate employment . However, we could observe that it was female parliamentarians (both PP and PSOE) who used reiterations more often than male parliamentarians (in PP 1/212w for women vs. 1/255w for men, and in PSOE 1/135w for women vs. 1/150w for men). So, we could say that while rhetorical repetitions are much more related to different political colours and are commonly used as a persuasive mechanism, reiterations are closer to other triggers like gender. that in the case of exchanges with PP parliamentarians, her use of rhetorical repetition is much higher (1/66w). It seems that when political differences are bigger the number of rhetorical mechanisms is also higher. One of the reasons might be that a Minister has to use all his/her rhetorical skills of persuasion and defense when he/she is in a hostile arena. Another reason their interactions with the RM to the first turn of oral questions. Figure 4 shows a general view of the use of rhetorical repetition by PSOE and PP Parliamentarians and the RM in oral questions. FIGURE 4: Use of rhetorical repetition by RM and parliamentarians In the following extract (about subsidies to women) we can see an example of epistrophe. The Minister is answering Pérez (PSOE):