A Pragma-Dialectical Approach to the Discourse Functionality of Presentational Devices in County Assembly Debates in Kenya

Abstract

Politicians employ emotive rhetoric in parliamentary debates as a strategic communicative tool in order to appeal to audiences for purposes of agenda-setting and ideological positioning. Discussants in the Nairobi County Assembly overwhelm their audience by using language that appeals to their emotions in order to make the audience empathise with them. Therefore, this paper aimed to examine the functionality of presentational devices in the County Assembly Debates using the pragma-dialectical approach. A descriptive case study design was used with qualitative approaches to allow a deeper inquiry into the phenomenon of debates using data from online archival Hansard records of Nairobi County Assembly. The study systematically sampled 48 debate transcripts of the print version of the Hansard from a total target population of 132 debates from February to November 2023. The study then purposively sampled 20 debates, which consisted of motions of the Nairobi County Assembly for analysis. Public documents from the Nairobi County assembly registry, consisting of schedules of the sectoral committees and the Standing Orders of the assembly, were collected from the website. Qualitative data were analysed with speech acts forming the unit of analysis. The data were subjected to analysis using the criteria recommended in the pragma-dialectical theory. The study established that discussants used strategic manoeuvres deliberately and more often at the beginning of the debate to persuade the antagonists to agree to their standpoints. The study was useful in identifying cultural and traditional applications of strategic manoeuvres peculiar to language use in African settings.