2 - Gender and Language in Political Institutions

Summary

This chapter situates the research in a mixed method framework with ethnography at the core. Ethnography emphasises that contexts for communication should be investigated rather than assumed and that the detailed analysis of linguistic data is essential to understanding its significance. It has been claimed that this informal knowledge about what can be said to whom, and how, has been overlooked in political accounts of institutions because mainstream comparative research in this area tends to analyse formal rules. Some of the complexities of conducting linguistic ethnographic work in institutions are: gaining access to research sites; researching powerful, elite participants and the viability of using the the readily available Official Reports as data. The ethnographic approach including ethnographic interviews and observations in situ in different parliaments, is combined with applied Conversation Analysis (CA). Gaining the floor has been viewed by analysts as a competitive economy and this is particularly apt for the highly regulated debate floor where turns are sought for professional and political gain. I also explain how Critical Discourse Analysis is used to assist the identification of gendered discourses relating to gendered linguistic stereotypes.