A Study on Question Types Replying Strategies and Interruptions in the Parliamentary Question Time in Taiwan

Abstract

Previous literatures on political discourses mainly pertained to political interviews debates and speeches but rarely focused on the parliamentary question time This study hence aims to explore the parliamentary discourses in Taiwan by analyzing the question-reply exchanges evasions hedges and interruptions to disclose how legislators with different political stances presented questions and employed interruptions to supervise government policies The second goal of this study is to manifest how government officials employed replying strategies and interruptions to defend To achieve these goals firstly six videos clips of the parliamentary question time were collected from the official website of Legislative Yuan Republic of China where the six legislators and the Minister of MOE were involved Then the data were analyzed by the four criteria in terms of classifying questions responses hedges and interruptions The results of this study show that closed questions which restrain possible answers were frequently employed by the legislators from the ruling and the major opposition parties But closed questions were employed by the opposition party legislators more often than by the ruling party legislators It is also found the Minister tended to supply required information to the questions asked by the legislators from the ruling party However when the Minister was questioned by the legislators from the opposition party he tended to evade their questions Besides this study finds that the respondent the Minister of MOE employed different levels of evasions and rhetoric hedges to the questions raised by the legislators in order to mitigate political blame or possible challenges and to cope with faces being threatened Furthermore this study also finds that interruptions were frequently employed by the legislators and the Minister for obtaining the speech floor from each other In addition it is found that the legislators from the two different parties had more successful interruption rate than the Minister did Through the analyses on question types replying strategies and interruptions of the questioning time general public legislators and government officials can gain insights into the essence of the parliamentary question time More importantly this study is expected to help legislators notice how they actually pose questions to government officials and hence use more effective strategies to elicit required information from the government officials to achieve the goal of supervision Moreover this study can also provide government officials with insights into how to defend their policies In particular it can familiarize novice government officials with the interaction patterns in the parliamentary question time with the legislators from the ruling and opposite parties

Date of Award	2014 Jul 9
Original language	English
Supervisor	Shin-Mei Kao (Supervisor)