Adversarial Interaction in Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK

Abstract: Politeness is a social norm but so too in certain contexts is impoliteness. One such situation is that of Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in the UK House of Commons. The event is notorious for its adversarial discourse, especially for the gladiatorial encounters between Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. Their encounters form the focus of this paper, in which, through the reporting of previous studies, we explore five distinctive features of PMQs discourse: face-threats, personal attacks, the rhetorical use of quotations, equivocation, and traditional forms of address; in a sixth study, we also discuss the potential political functions of adversarial opposition. Adversarial questioning is the norm of PMQs; it is the expected role of opposition leaders to scrutinise government policies and actions, and to call the government to account. Thereby, PMQs adversarialism can be seen to reflect the underlying social norms and evaluations of this highly distinctive social settin.... https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/8099

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Adversarial Interaction in Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK ; volume:11 ; number:2 ; day:06 ; month:12 ; year:2023 ; Journal of social and political psychology ; 11, Heft 2 (06.12.2023)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Bull, Peter ; Waddle, Maurice

Further information

• DOI: 10.5964/jspp.8099
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2023122304144556655310
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:22 AM CEST