The parliamentary Hansard ‘verbatim’ report: the written construction of spoken discourse

Abstract

In this article I want to contribute to the critical linguistic analysis of discourse representation practices in an institutional context. I focus on the minutes of the British parliamentary proceedings. My method is that of a detailed comparison of the printed text of the report against transcripts of the spoken debates. I begin by proposing two central premises for a theory of discourse representation. Applying these to the Hansard data, two fundamental tendencies are noted which reflect the impact of macro social-linguistic determinants on discourse. These I also analyse in the light of their attending ideologies of communication. Thus, one can put forward the existence of a wider ‘representational culture’ which is typical for a literate society like Britain (and whose workings also affect linguistic theory). In addition, I take up the idea that institutions provide the level at which social formations are instantiated and transformed. In this way, I show that an understanding of the Hansard practices also requires one to pay attention to factors which are specific to Parliament itself and which bring about a transformation of the culturally dominant ‘verbatim style’.