A study of linguistic strategies in Irish Dáil debates with a focus on power and gender.

Parliamentary discourse has been described as fundamentally adversarial. In the context of the parliamentary debating chamber, power relations are negotiated and challenged through the strategic use of language. It is the aim of this study to identify the ways in which strategic language is used to negotiate the dynamics of power in the context of Irish parliamentary debate. Given that women are a minority in the Dáil, the topic of gender is a relevant dimension to the research. As a secondary aim, the study investigates whether and in what ways gender is invoked in the strategic use of language. The study employs a multi-method qualitative approach to analyse strategic language use in the area of parliamentary discourse. It focuses on the micro-level of discourse by undertaking a close linguistic analysis of extracts from debate transcripts from the 31st Dáil. Also, current members of the parliament are interviewed to gain perspectives on the dialectics of speaking in the institutionalised setting of the chamber. Linguistic strategies are analysed using a classification designed for the purposes of the study. The analysis indicates that TDs use a wide variety of forms of strategic language in Dáil interaction. The study also suggests that there is an awareness of the informal and formal rules that are in place in the habitus of the Dáil chamber. The multi-method framework of the study uncovers a set of different perspectives between TDs’ statements in the interview data and the findings from analysis of debate interaction. The study also suggests that female TDs may use strategic language which invokes gender in order to challenge male authority in debate interaction, and that female TDs may invoke gender more often than their male counterparts when using linguistic strategies