Language & Politics : the UK parliament

The British Parliament, is the law-making body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas lands. It alone possesses legislative authority and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and its territories. Its head is currently Queen Elizabeth II and its seat is the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster, located in Greater London.

The two-house system- Within the UK parliament, there are two main 'houses' which are similar in terms of roles - to introduce new laws, talk about particular issues, and to check the government's work. In this system, there is the House of Commons - this house is in charge of financial problems as well as legislating new laws.

Parliamentary language consists of many terms that are used that may not be understood by people outside of the field. For example:

Adjournment debate: usually a half-hour debate introduced by a backbencher at the end of business for the day. The subjects raised are often local or personal issues.

Committee of the whole House: when the entire House sits as a committee in the Chamber. It is presided over by the chairman of ways and means or one of his deputies, and the mace is placed under the table instead of upon it. The committee stages of bills of constitutional importance, urgent bills, and parts of the finance bill are usually taken in committee of the whole House instead of in standing committee.

Consolidation bill: a bill that seeks to draw together several previous enactments on a subject. In the Commons, the second and third readings are taken without debate.

Delegated legislation: legislation made by ministers under powers granted to them in acts of parliament.

Vote bundle: includes the order paper, giving the agenda for the current day's sitting, lists of parliamentary proceedings, a summary of the proceedings of standing committees that sat the previous day.

Standing order - an order made by the House (Commons or Lords) for the regulation of its proceedings.

Unparliamentary Language:

 Tradition has evolved that there are words or phrases that are deemed inappropriate for use in the legislature whilst it is in session. In a Westminster system, this is called unparliamentary language and there are similar rules in other kinds of legislative system. Exactly what constitutes unparliamentary language is generally left to the choice of the Speaker of the House. Part of the speaker's job is to enforce the assembly's debating rules, one of which is that members may not use "unparliamentary" language. That is, their words must not offend the dignity of the assembly.

Some Examples :

•Bullshit

•git

•traitor

•liar

Political Poster analysis

Political Poster analysis:

I looked at a political poster that was used in WW2 which was made to make people want to join the U.S army. The first thing that catches your eye is the photo in the middle of the poster, it is of a man dressed smartly with a hat on, all in red white and blue to represent the USA. In the photo it is almost as if the man is making eye contact with the reader which makes the reader believe the poster is directed at them specifically. The man is also pointing which is also directive but intimidating to the reader, it may make them feel obliged to do as the poster says out of fear. Additionally another point that could be made of the photo in the middle could be that the person pointing is a male, some may see this as sexist and view that males would be the only sex able to have power and control over others.

The purpose of this poster is clearly to persuade you to join the U.S Army. To persuade would clearly be the primary purpose of this poster but some may argue that the secondary purpose would be to inform only on the basis that it is informing you that people are needed within the army and informing you of the importance.

The first three words at the top of the poster are ‘I WANT YOU’. The word ‘I’ is a personal pronoun which makes it seem that this message is only coming from one person and the poster may be viewed as a conversation almost between the reader and the director. The word ‘want’ shows a sense on influential power as the poster is trying to persuade you to do something. The final word within that clause is ‘you’ which is a second person pronoun, but it is also underlined showing the importance of the word and stressing the significance of how much they need people to join. Only statements are made on this poster which would be threatening negative face as there is no politeness at all on this poster.

The words at the bottom of the poster state ‘for the U.S ARMY ENLIST NOW’. I believe that the ‘for the’ is in smaller font than the rest of the writing on the poster because it is on least importance. If you took out ‘for the’ it would only seem more forceful but it would still make sense. The ‘U.S Army’ links to the context of the poster and what the poster is about. The final line says ‘enlist now’ giving a sense of urgency especially as it is in bold writing making it stand out but also the lexical choice gives off the same impression. The word ‘now’ is an imperative showing vital importance to the readers, however, it is still very strong without any politeness used.

Overall this poster is very straight forward. There isn’t much information as there are no full sentences only clauses used and it is clear what message they wanted to betray, this message was that people are needed/wanted in the U.S army and quickly. The country the poster is about it also made clear due to the colours used on the clothes of the man in the poster and it being stated that it is the U.S army towards the bottom.