Politeness in Parliamentary Discourse: An Analysis of the Hansard of the Parliament of Ghana

This study investigates politeness in parliamentary discourse in Ghana. Using politeness theory as framework and the parliamentary Hansard as source of data, the study examines the politeness strategies employed by parliamentary actors, the implications of the frequency of the usage of the politeness strategies, and how the Standing Orders of Parliament determine the choice of a politeness strategy. Findings of the study show that political actors in the Parliament of Ghana use the bald on-record, the positive, the negative and the off-record politeness strategies in varied proportions. The study further reveals that the negative politeness strategy is the most frequently used politeness strategy with the Speaker being the highest user of the negative and the bald on-record politeness strategies. Again, the study found out that the off-record politeness strategy is the least used strategy. The Majority Members in Parliament use the highest frequency of the positive politeness strategies while the Minority Members of Parliament employ more negative politeness strategies. The study concludes that parliamentary discourse in Ghana employs more of the direct explicit polite expressions than the indirect implicit expressions of politeness. The study recommends that researchers should pay critical attention to the politeness phenomenon in parliamentary discourse.


Introduction
One central pragmatic feature of human communication employed by participants during interaction is the politeness phenomenon (Borris & Zecho, 2018). Polite behaviour is very essential to ensuring that there is good relationship between interlocutors in order to achieve desired outcomes in interaction. Sulastriana (2018) asserts that the ability to establish good communication can be seen from the ability to use polite language. In that regard, individuals are expected to maintain appropriate decorum and civility during interactions so as to avoid saying something that may hurt others. Politeness is an essential tool which is applicable in political discourse. It is therefore important that efforts are made to study how a political institution like Parliament employs politeness in parliamentary discourse for the purpose of establishing good relationships among parliamentarians and also ensuring that the dignity and integrity of Parliament is maintained. According to Balogun and Murana (2018), the political nature of man is his innate sense of dignity or self-importance that he wants others to acknowledge.
This means that the desire of the politician to be respected and regarded leans to the notion of politeness. Political politeness is therefore a critical area that researchers should draw their attention to in their assessment of parliamentary discourses (Malima & Masindano, 2018). Parliamentary discourse is a subgenre of political discourse (Ilie, 2006) and it is prone to confrontations (Malima & Masindano, 2018). There is, therefore, the need to employ politeness strategies to mitigate potential face threats during parliamentary deliberations (Malima & Masindano, 2018). Parliamentary deliberations could be chaotic if the politeness phenomenon is ignored by parliamentary actors.
Parliament, as an institution, is guided by rules and regulations which are known as the Standing Orders of Parliament. All parliamentarians are expected to strictly observe the provisions in the Standing Orders during parliamentary deliberations. Some of the Standing Orders regulate discourse in Parliament. Thus, some Standing Orders have relationship with the politeness phenomenon which seeks to mitigate face threats.
A myriad of studies on politeness in political discourse have been conducted across the globe, with focus on several aspects of the discourse. With regards to Europe, Saleem and Alattar (2020) examined how politicians in the British and Iraqi parliaments employ (im)politeness strategies in political blame and blame avoidance situations. Their study also examined the similarities and/or differences in using (im)politeness and rhetorical strategies in parliamentary discourses. Drawing ideas and assumptions from Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness model, Culpeper's (1996) model of impoliteness, and Grice's (1975) cooperative principle, Saleem and Alattar (2020) found that the British MPs used impoliteness strategies at the blame stage and politeness strategies at the blame avoidance stage, whereas the Iraqi MPs exploited impoliteness at both the blame and blame avoidance stages. Murphy (2014) also investigated the use of (im)politeness in the Prime Minister's Questions (PMQ) sessions in the UK Parliament using Culpeper's (2011) impoliteness model for the analysis of impolite behaviours and discovered that opposition MPs used impolite expressions when asking the Prime Minister (PM) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/sll Studies in Linguistics and Literature Vol. 5, No. 4, 2021 3 Published by SCHOLINK INC. questions, while government MPs employed politeness in asking questions. Treimane (2011) employed the Systemic Functional Parameters by Halliday and Webster (2002) and Halliday and Hasan (1991)  revealed that three politeness strategies were dominant: bald on-record, negative politeness, and positive politeness. Yu (2015), in turn, studied the use of politeness strategies in questioning government officials, and the factors that influence legislators' choice of questioning strategies during parliamentary Question and Answer sessions in Taiwan. The study adopted Lee-Wong's (2000) framework, which is a revision of Brown and Levinson's (1987)  From the American perspective, Dridi (2020) used the politeness models of Brown and Levinson (1987) and Lakoff (2005) as framework to examine American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) political annual speeches and concluded that positive politeness is essential for gaining audience sympathy and reshaping public opinion.
Whiles some studies have been conducted on politeness in parliamentary discourse in the African context, it appears minimal attention has been given to the Ghanaian Parliament with respect to politeness strategies used on the floor of Parliament. For instance, Malima and Masindano (2018) examined confrontations in the Tanzanian Parliament. Using Brown and Levinson's (1987)

Research Approach
This study adopted the qualitative research approach in gathering data. Qualitative research is an approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human phenomenon (Creswell, 2014).

Data Collection and Analysis
The parliamentary Hansard is the main document that was used in gathering data for this study. Hansard is a verbatim record of parliamentary proceedings even including all interruptions, and this gives a true picture of the proceedings as they happen on the floor of parliament. Also, Hansard is a public document and hard copies are available at the Hansard Department for interested researchers to pick. The Hansard reports are also published on the website of the Parliament of Ghana. Hansard reports that contained the relevant data from the various parliamentary discourse subgenres such as motions for debates, Urgent Questions sessions, statements made on the floor of the House, and Oral Answers to Questions sessions were purposively sampled for the study. Brown and Levinson (1987)   2) Exaggerating (interest, approval, sympathy with the hearer).

3)
Intensifying interest to hearer 4) Using in-group identity markers.

9)
Asserting or presupposing people's knowledge and concern for hearer's wants.
10) Offering and promising. Adapted from Brown and Levinson (1987)

Results
This study sought to use the Hansard as source of data to investigate the politeness strategies that are employed in parliamentary discourse, the frequency of usage of the politeness strategies, and how the Standing Orders of parliament influence the choice of politeness strategies. Results of the study are presented below:

The Politeness Strategies Employed in the Parliamentary Hansard
Results of this study showed that Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies are used in varied forms in the parliamentary Hansard. These are the bald-on record, positive politeness, negative politeness and off-record strategies.

Bald On-record Strategies
Below are excerpts of the use of bald on-record politeness in the Hansard;

Extract 1
Minority MP: Mr Speaker, the Hon Member is grossly misleading this House.
The NPP Administration never spent in excess of Appropriation.

Extract 3
Majority MP: Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to make this Statement on the Independence Day celebrations in our dear country. Mr Speaker, one week from today, Ghana, our beloved country, will mark her 56th Independence Anniversary. In spite of the challenging circumstances in which we find ourselves as a nation, we are delighted and therefore, grateful to the Almighty for keeping us together as one nation and in peace. On this occasion, we salute the founding fathers of the nation led by Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, whose gallant efforts led to the attainment of nationhood for our country.
In this extract, the MP expresses gratitude to the Speaker for giving him/her the opportunity to make a statement on the floor of the House. The expressions, "thank you", "grateful to Almighty" and "salute the founding fathers" are pleasing words to express positive politeness. Again, the extract contains inclusive devices which are prerequisite for positive politeness. For instance, expressions of endearment such as "our dear country", "our beloved country" all indicate interest and love for country. Also, the use of the plural pronoun, "we" as in, "we find ourselves; we are delighted and we salute", show the togetherness and cooperation of the Ghanaian citizens for common interest and beliefs. The extract also expresses optimism, which is a positive politeness marker. This is evident in, "In spite of the challenging circumstances in which we find ourselves as a nation, we are delighted… for keeping us together as one nation and in peace". Even though Ghana, as nation, has its own challenging moments, the MP's statement encourages the citizens to be optimistic because there is peace in the country. President who is action oriented". The MP's use of the in-group pronoun, "we" expresses a positive politeness strategy of including both speaker and hearer, as well as all Ghanaians, in a common activity: we voted. The MP uses the positive politeness expressions to give approval to the financial statement of the government and he is rewarded with "Hear! Hear!" from his colleague Majority MPs.

Negative Politeness Strategies
The following extracts show the negative politeness strategies;

Off-record Politeness Strategies
Off record strategy is essentially the indirect use of language where one says something that is either more general or completely different from what is intended so that it is left on the addressee to figure out what is intended. According to Brown and Levinson (1987, p. 211), "a communicative act is done off record if it is done in such a way that it is not possible to attribute only one clear communicative intention to the act". Brown and Levinson (1987) assert also that speakers use off record strategies in order to avoid being responsible for the potential face threats their utterance might carry. Thus, an addresser who wants to avoid the responsibility for doing an FTA can do so by employing the off-record strategies where the interpretation of the utterance is left for the addressee to decide. The extract below demonstrates the use of off the record politeness strategy.

Extract 7
Majority MP: Mr Speaker, this budget is the right budget by the right President, In extract 7 above, the Majority MP employs an off-record politeness strategy of presupposition. His statement that, "Mr Speaker, this budget is the right budget by the right President, at the right time" presupposes that a previous budget was not the right budget presented by the right President at the right time. The utterance may thus implicate a criticism of a previous budget presented by a previous government at a previous time. The tautological use of the word, "right" is also an off-record politeness strategy. By stressing the word, "right" 3 times, the Majority MP expects his listeners to make inferences to the informative interpretation of the word.
In reply to the criticism of the Majority MP, the Minority MP resorts to the use of metaphor, which is another off-record politeness strategy. The Minority MP said, "Mr Speaker, first of all, I know wise men do not proffer advice in the open, they do it behind the curtains; and when wise men jump into the fray and they are using very subjective and prescriptive language in the House, we need to be worried". His reference to the majority MP as a "wise man" is metaphorical. The Majority MP had been one of the longest serving MPs in Parliament. Thus, when his political party won elections, the expectation was that the MP would be given ministerial appointment but because the MP and his other two long serving colleague MPs were not given any appointment, the three were nicknamed, "the three Wise men".

Extract 8
Minority Is that what is implied by the waiver of due process by the President"? By using rhetorical questions, Minority MP avoids the responsibility for doing the face threat. The Minority MP subsequently denies that he says the President is willing to set aside due process of the law by arguing that, "Mr Speaker, I  Brown and Levinson's (1987) assertion that a communicative act is done off record if the speaker wants to avoid responsibility for doing FTAs. Thus, the Minority MP is not on record to have said that the president indicates he was willing to set aside due process in order to fight against corruption.
His reference to "the invisible forces way" is giving association clues to a by-election violence which occurred in a constituency called Ayawaso West Wuogon in which a vigilante group called "Invincible Forces" was purportedly blamed for violence against the opposition. Though the Minority MP did not mention the by-election violence, the use of "invincible forces" suggests violence.

Frequency of the Politeness Strategies in the Hansard
The data indicated that the various politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) were used at varied frequency by political actors as observed in the Hansard. The diagram below shows the frequency of occurrence of the various politeness strategies;

Figure 1. Frequency of Politeness Strategies
From the diagram, negative politeness is the most frequently occurring politeness strategy observed in the Hansard; 2,202 (40%), followed by positive politeness; 1,555 (28%), then bald on-record; 1,360 (24%) and the least strategy being the off-record politeness; 452 (8%). Brown and Levinson (1987) aver that the negative politeness strategies are employed when the speaker wants to give maximum respect or deference to the hearer. Thus, the frequent use of negative politeness strategies in the Hansard implies that parliamentary actors in Ghana give maximum respect to one another during parliamentary deliberations. The data also show that off-record politeness strategy is the least occurring politeness strategy in the Hansard. In off-record strategy, the speaker avoids doing FTAs directly and rather employs indirect strategies of giving hints, using association clues, inviting conversational implicatures or being vague or ambiguous. The less frequent use of the off-record politeness implies that Ghanaian parliamentary actors use more direct explicit expressions and less indirect implicit forms of politeness. The findings of this study corroborate Sarfo's (2016) findings that politeness in the parliament of Ghana is expressed by direct linguistic forms such as the modal past.
The findings of this study also reveal that the categories of parliamentary actors, such as the Speaker,  (25%). The bald on-record politeness strategies which were used by the Speaker were mostly the imperative forms, sometimes uttered baldly without redressive acts. For example, "Order, order!", "Hon member, proceed" or "Hon Member, withdraw and apologise". Brown and Levinson (1987) state, that to do an act baldly, without redress, is to do it in the most direct, clear, explicit and brief manner possible and this is in line with Grice's Maxims of Cooperation (Grice, 1975) which also state that interlocutors ought to be informative, truthful, relevant and clear in their communication.
According to Brown and Levinson (1987), an FTA is usually done baldly only if the speaker does not  There are also instances where the bald on-record politeness strategies are done with some special politeness markers such as "please" or "kindly". For example, "Hon Member, please continue", "Hon Member, kindly take your seat", or "Order, order, please". The use of such special politeness markers is meant to soften the command and lessen the threat to face. The Speaker utters these bald on-record strategies under certain relevant circumstances to enable him take care of the face wants of the MPs being addressed. In a circumstance where the Speaker must ensure that there is order in the House and also be mindful of the face need of the MPs, he uses these special politeness markers with the bald on record strategies to control the proceedings. For instance, the Speaker, under the circumstance of a heated debate, where there are interruptions, has to make use of the bald on-record strategy with the special politeness markers, "order, order, please", to enable him bring the House to order.  The data gathered also indicated that the Minority MPs performed 440 positive polite utterances which represents 28%. The positive politeness strategies were also intended to convey in-group identity markers, hedging opinion, avoiding disagreement and also including addresser and addressee in an activity.

Figure 4. Frequency of Negative Politeness
From the diagram, the data show that the Speaker of Parliament uses the negative politeness strategies most frequently than the other parliamentarians. From the 40 Hansard reports that were analysed, the researcher recorded 754 (34%) negative politeness utterances made by Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker's use of the negative politeness strategies is to minimise the imposition so that the MPs would feel that their freedoms are unhindered or unimpeded by the Speaker. Brown and Levinson (1987)   'everything about you is great'". The statement suggests that everything about the government is good.
The Majority MP thus, sought to agree with the programmes of the government.

Hansard
The findings of this study show that a number of Standing Orders of the Parliament of Ghana influence how parliamentarians employ politeness strategies in parliamentary discourse. The extract below is Standing Order 86(3) states that:

Extract 9
Ministers shall be referred to by their Ministerial titles. The Deputy Speakers and the Deputy Ministers shall be referred to by the names of the offices held by them. All other Members shall be referred to as "Honourable" together with the name of their constituencies, that is, "the Honourable Member for", where an Honourable Member has already been so described in a speech he may be further referred to as "My Honourable Friend' or "The Honourable Gentleman, Lady or Member" (Standing Order 86 (3), 2000) The provision in Standing Order 86(3) above makes reference to the negative politeness strategy of giving deference. The honorific use of address forms such as, "Honourable", "The Honourable Gentleman, Lady or Member", which have become part of parliamentary language, confers respect and honour to the addressee. Hence, any MP who fails to use them is deemed to be out of order. The findings corroborate Treimane's (2011)  expressions, "My Honourable Friend" or "My Hon Colleague" are suggestive of positive politeness strategy of using in-group identity markers. The House of parliament is regarded as a community of practice and the sense of the we-feeling is highly regarded. Thus, Standing Order 86(3) influences parliamentarians to use both negative and positive politeness strategies during parliamentary debates.
The following extract illustrates that parliamentarians are regulated by Standing Order 86(3) to be polite in their discourse".

Extract 10
Minority motives to any other Member or to make personal allusions".
Hon Members, to say he is not a good liar is to say that he is a liar but not a good one-[Uproar.] I rule that the use of "not a good liar" is offensive and I direct the Hon Member to withdraw and apologise (23 November, 2017, pp. 3772-3774).
In contributing to the debate on the Budget statement, a Minority MP refers to the Hon Minister of Finance as not being a good liar. A majority MP rose on point of order and quoted Standing Order 93 (2) to support his argument that the statement of the Minority MP presupposes that the Hon Finance Minister is a liar just that he is not a good one. The statement of the Minority MP therefore infringes on Standing Order 93(2). It is based on this argument that the Speaker quoted Standing Order 93(2) again and gave a ruling that, "The use of 'not a good liar' is offensive and I direct the Hon Member to withdraw and apologise".

Discussion
This study sought to specifically investigate the politeness strategies employed in the parliamentary  instances where the bald on-record politeness strategies are done with some special politeness markers such as "please" or "kindly. For example, "Hon Member, please continue", "Hon Member, kindly take your seat", Hon Member, please continue" or "order, order, please". The use of such special politeness markers is meant to soften the command and lessen the threat to face. The Speaker utters these bald on-record strategies under certain relevant circumstances to enable him take care of the face wants of the MPs being addressed. In a circumstance where the Speaker must ensure that there is order in the House and also be mindful of the face want of the MPs, he uses these special politeness markers with the bald on record strategies to control the proceedings. For instance, the Speaker, under the circumstance of a heated debate, where there are interruptions, has to make use of the bald on-record strategy with the special politeness markers, "order, order, please", to enable him bring the House to order.
The data collected showed that the MPs and the Speaker used positive politeness strategies to claim common grounds, demonstrate cooperation, seek agreement and to show camaraderie as in-group also indicate that the Speaker shows concern for the MPs thereby, ensuring cooperation during parliamentary proceedings.
Negative politeness is considered as highest form of respect for interlocutors. Brown and Levinson (1987)  would most often refer to the MPs as "Hon Members" and the MPs refer to one another as "Hon Member", "my Hon Colleague or Friend". By the use of these honorifics, the Speaker raises the status of the MPs and takes care of their negative face wants. The speaker also uses conventional indirect utterances such as "Hon Member, your time is up" instead of directly ordering the MP to end or "Hon will you sit down? (to mean sit down). These questioning and hedging as negative politeness devices are prevalent in parliamentary discourse in Ghana. For instance, the hedging words such as, "believe", "think", "seem" and "appear" are employed in varied degrees. Again, the use of the modal past verb forms such as, "could", and "would" are common in parliamentary discourses. The data show also that Mr Speaker is the most frequent user of the negative politeness strategies. This is to enable the Speaker, as a leader of the House, minimise imposition so that the MPs would feel that their freedoms are unhindered or unimpeded.
Findings of this study show that off-record politeness strategy is the least frequently occurring politeness strategy in the Hansard. In off-record strategy, the speaker avoids doing FTAs directly and rather employs indirect strategies of giving hints, using association clues, inviting conversational implicatures or being vague or ambiguous. The less frequent use of the off-record politeness implies that Ghanaian parliamentary actors use more direct explicit expressions and less indirect implicit forms of politeness. The findings of this study corroborate Sarfo's (2016) findings that politeness in the parliament of Ghana is expressed by direct linguistic forms such as the modal past. Minority MPs uttered the highest number of off-record strategies, followed by the Majority MPs and then the Speaker.
This implies that, as MPs in opposition, they are cautious not to do a face threat on-record for fear of retribution from the majority MPs and the Speaker, who is usually elected from the majority side.
The study revealed also that certain Standing Orders of the Parliament of Ghana determine the choice of politeness strategies. Standing Order 86(3) makes allusion to the negative politeness strategy of giving deference. The use of expressions such as, "Honourable", "The Honourable Gentleman, Lady or Member", "Mr Speaker", which are considered as negative politeness utterances, are entrenched in the Standing Orders. This corroborates Treimane's (2011) assertion that certain lexico-grammatical structures such as noun phrases, which are used to signify are prescribed in the rules of order. Also, the expressions, "My Honourable Friend" or "My Hon Colleague" are also suggestive of positive politeness strategy of using in-group identity markers. The House of parliament is regarded as a community of practice and the sense of the we-feeling is highly regarded. blasphemous or unbecoming words or to impute improper motives to any other Member or to make personal allusions but to be decorous and respectful to one another. This provision alludes to both the positive and negative face want of Members of Parliament.

Conclusion
The political actors in the Parliament of Ghana, such as Members of Parliament and Mr Speaker used the politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson's (1987) in various forms and frequencies as observed in the parliamentary Hansard. These strategies include the bald on-record politeness strategy, the positive politeness strategy, the negative politeness strategy and the off-record politeness strategy.
Further, negative politeness is the most frequently occurring politeness strategy in the parliamentary Hansard of Ghana, while the off-record strategy is the least occurring politeness strategy. The Speaker uses the highest frequency of negative politeness and bald on-record politeness strategies in the Hansard. This implies that the Speaker demonstrates the greatest level of respect to the other parliamentary actors and also shows power and control over parliamentary business. The study revealed that Majority Members of Parliament use more positive politeness strategies to imply higher solidarity, camaraderie and cooperation among themselves and government appointees. These conclusions confirm Yu's (2015) assertion that political roles, either as a government legislator or an opposition member, influences parliamentarians' use of politeness strategies.
The study further concludes that the Standing Orders of the Parliament of Ghana require parliamentarians to employ politeness in their discourse and that parliamentarians' use of politeness strategies is guided and influenced by the Standing Orders. Although Watts (2003) refers to honorifics such as, "Mr Speaker", "Honourable", "The Honourable Gentleman, Lady or Member" as politic language, the intent and purpose of the Standing Orders lend credence to the use of politeness strategies.
This conclusion corroborates David et al. (2009) who indicated that Standing Orders serve as face savers, manage discourse, and maintain respect and integrity in parliamentary discourse.