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Vagueness, Ambiguity, and All the Rest: Linguistic and pragmatic approaches
Edited by Ilaria Fiorentini and Chiara Zanchi
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 347] 2024
► pp. 234–259

Chapter 10
Vagueness and ambiguity of perlocutionary effects in Prime Minister’s Question time sessions

| University of Niš

Prime Minister’s Question time sessions are speech events in which questions are not only requests for information, and answers do not only provide the requested information. Speakers also exchange argumentation, so the illocutionary act of advancing argumentation can be regarded as a constitutive component of these speech events. More specifically, argumentation can precede the MP’s question to the Prime Minister and it can be part of the Prime Minister’s response to the MP’s question. The research tested the assumption that both (1) questions with clear locution and illocution and (2) questions with unclear locution and/or illocution can produce vague and/or ambiguous perlocutionary effects or consequences. Perlocutionary effects or consequences were classified into illocutionary and non-illocutionary perlocutionary effects or consequences (van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s 1984: 26–27). The analysis included 70 question-answer exchanges from two Question time sessions. The results demonstrate that disagreements can lead to non-answer responses.

Keywords: vagueness, ambiguity, perlocutionary effects, Prime Minister’s Questions, argumentation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical model
    • 2.1The illocutionary act and clarity
    • 2.2Vagueness
    • 2.3Ambiguity
    • 2.4Vagueness, ambiguity and perlocutionary effects
  • 3.Corpus analysis
    • 3.1Corpus
    • 3.2Methods
    • 3.3Results and discussion
      • 3.3.1TM_PMQ
      • 3.3.2BJ_PMQ
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Research corpus
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Boris Johnson’s First PMQs: 4 September 2019
[URL], last access date: 21 July 2022.
Theresa May Receives Standing Ovation from MPs in her Final Prime Minister’s Questions | ITV News Streamed live on Jul 24, 2019
[URL], last access date: 20 July 2022.