The pragmatics of modality and point of view in Ghanaian parliamentary debates

Abstract

The study investigated the role modality plays in reflecting the underlying points of view in parliamentary discourse within the analytical framework of Simpson’s (1993) version of modality and point of view and Halliday’s (1985) conceptualisation of modal values. The objective was to find out the type of point of view that is expressed, using a particular modal element. The study also investigated how through modality and point of view participants bond around motions; that is, how members align/disalign politically on the floor of parliament. The qualitative design was considered for the study, using 12 Hansards of parliamentary debates within the period of five months, November 2016 to March 2017. In terms of frequency of modal auxiliaries, ‘would’ was found to be the recurrent choice for expressing modality and point of view. The lexical modal that also dominated the expression of modality and point of view was ‘want’. The high-value modals were generally used by speakers to show a high level of commitment and responsibility. The median values were mostly used to hedge and mitigate the force in directives whereas the low-value modals exploited possibility meanings (showing more of the deliberative and democratic nature of parliamentary discourse.) Also, external point of view was found dominant. Both government and opposition MPs used external point of view with deontic and strong epistemic modals to evade personal responsibility. In terms of alignment, members aligned more using deontic and strong epistemic modals than they disalign. These key findings contribute to the scholarship on parliamentary discourse, modality and point of view and have implications for further research.