Discursive Formations in a Pragmatic Analysis of Parliamentary Language

Abstract

Language is generally intended to be communicative, but at times, it does more than that due to manipulations. This paper examined aspects of Concept and Object as discursive elements employed by politicians during debates to create socio-political dominance. Political discourse is a form of human activity that needs to be studied. Speech is manipulated by the speaker to suit his/her interests. When this happens, language becomes something more than just a medium for communicating propositional knowledge. Due to technological advancement, people are now more exposed to verbal messages of many kinds, most of which can be thought of as political in nature. The study analyzed pragmatic strategies: Concept and Object and their impact on the socio-political dominance in Kenyan parliamentary debates. A descriptive research design was employed, and purposively sampled texts from Hansard portrayed aspects of socio-political dominance. Concept and object were identified as discursive formations that parliamentarians used during debates. The paper found out that concepts and objects had an impact on the language that parliamentarians used, and it contributed to the knowledge of linguistics, particularly with regard to Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics.