Parliament as theatre: development of theatrality in the House of Commons debates

The text describes the development of theatrality in parliamentary discourses in the House of Commons. It analyses functions of parliamentary debates, especially the communicative function of parliament. The theatrality of parliamentary discourse is composed of several elements. These are the architecture of the House, rules and customs of parliamentary debates and the parliamentary language itself. In the final part of the text I will compare theatrality of parliamentary debates from three different periods of the House of Commons history. While the initial period contains parliamentary debates from before the first radio broadcastings from the House, debates of the second period are already aired. The last period gathers three televised House of Commons debates. According to the texts principal hypothesis of the text, the theatrality of parliamentary discourses will rise with the media broadcasting. The final comparison shows differences among examined periods, however, the hypothesis was not entirely confirmed. Several aspects of detheatrility of parliamentary discourses also appears