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Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities

Official journal of Universiti Putra Malaysia for scholarly work across the social sciences, humanities and related interdisciplinary fields.

e-ISSN 2231-8534 ISSN 0128-7702
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Research article

Evasion in Malaysian Parliamentary Question Time

Najah Zainal Abidin, Veronica Lowe and Jariah Mohd Jan

Volume 31, Issue 3 September 2023 Published 22 September 2023
https://doi.org/10.47836/pjssh.31.3.09
KeywordsAgenda shifts, content analysis, evasion, Malaysian parliamentary discourse, question time
Article content

Abstract

This study explores evasion employed by Malaysian ministers and deputy ministers during Question Time using Clayman’s Framework of Evasion (2001, 2012). While most evasion studies have focused on political interviews, particularly within western settings, this study examines evasion during Question Time in the Malaysian parliament. The study is content-analytic and uses parliamentary Hansards. Ministers and deputy ministers performed various overt and covert strategies of resistance by refusing to commit to an answer, attacking the questioners, justifying the agenda shifts to counter negative presuppositions and provide rationales, minimizing the divergence to downgrade the severity of a situation, and operating on the question by asserting agreements and talking about the current policy. Further, the questioners did not pursue overtly employed instances of evasion, indicating the influence of context on evasion. Finally, other strategies of evasion found in this study that were not found in Clayman (2001, 2012), such as jokes, could be further explored in future studies.
Supporting literature

References

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  50. Bull, P. (1994). On identifying questions, replies, and non-replies in political interviews. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 13(2), 115-131. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X94132002
  51. Bull, P. (2008). “Slipperiness, evasion, and ambiguity” equivocation and facework in noncommittal political discourse. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 27(4), 333-344. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X08322475
  52. Bull, P., & Fetzer, A. (2006). Who are we and who are you? The strategic use of forms of address in political interviews. Text and Talk, 26(1), 1-35. https://doi.org/10.1515/TEXT.2006.002
  53. Bull, P., & Fetzer, A. (2010). Face, facework and political discourse. Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale, 23(2), 155-185.
  54. Bull, P., Fetzer, A., & Kádár, D. Z. (2020). Calling Mr Speaker ‘Mr Speaker’: The strategic use of ritual references to the Speaker of the UK House of Commons. Pragmatics, 30(1), 64-87. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.19020.bul
  55. Bull, P., & Mayer, K. (1993). How not to answer questions in political interviews. Political Psychology, 14(4), 651-666. https://doi.org/10.2307/3791379
  56. Bull, P., & Strawson, W. (2020). Can’t answer? Won’t answer? An analysis of equivocal responses by Theresa May in Prime Minister’s Questions. Parliamentary Affairs, 73(2), 429-449. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsz003
  57. Carranza, A. V. (2016). Evading and resisting answering: An analysis of Mexican Spanish news interviews. Pragmatics and Society, 7(4), 570-594. https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.7.4.03car
  58. Chovanec, J. (2020). “Those are not my words”: Evasion and metalingual accountability in political scandal talk. Journal of Pragmatics, 158, 66-79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.01.003
  59. Clayman, S. E. (2001). Answers and evasions. Language in Society, 30(3), 403-442. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404501003037
  60. Clayman, S. E. (2012). Conversation analysis in the news interview context. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 630-656). Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118325001.ch31
  61. Dillon, J. T. (1990). The practice of questioning. Taylor & Francis.
  62. Feldman, O. (2020). The rhetoric of broadcast talk shows in Japan: The art of equivocation as a political skill. In O. Feldman (Ed.), The rhetoric of political leadership: Logic and emotion in public discourse (pp. 139-155). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789904581.00016
  63. Feldman, O., & Kinoshita, K. (2017). Expanding factors in threat to face: Assessing the toughness/equivocation connection in Japanese televised political interviews. Language and Dialogue, 7(3), 336-359. https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.7.3.02fel
  64. Feldman, O., Kinoshita, K., & Bull, P. (2016). ‘Ducking and diving’: How political issues affect equivocation in Japanese political interviews. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 17(2), 141-167. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1468109916000013
  65. Fetzer, A. (2006). “Minister, we will see how the public judges you”: Media references in political interviews. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(2), 180-195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.06.017
  66. Gnisci, A. (2021). Pragmatic functions of question-answer sequences in Italian legal examinations and TV interviews with politicians. In C. Ilie (Ed.), Questioning and answering practices across contexts and cultures (pp. 115-150). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  67. Gnisci, A., & Bonaiuto, M. (2003). Grilling politicians: Politicians’ answers to questions in television interviews and courtroom examinations. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 22(4), 385-413. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X03258088
  68. Goddard, C. (1994). The meaning of Lah: Understanding” emphasis” in Malay (Bahasa Melayu). Oceanic Linguistics, 145-165. https://doi.org/10.2307/3623004
  69. Goss, B., & Williams, L. (1973). The effects of equivocation on perceived source credibility. Communication Studies, 24(3), 162-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510977309363165
  70. Guditus, C. L. (2021). You were resisting the whole time! In C. Ilie (Ed.), Questioning and answering practices across contexts and cultures (pp. 151-170). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  71. Hamilton, M. A., & Mineo, P. J. (1998). A framework for understanding equivocation. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 17(1), 3-35. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X980171001
  72. Hanafe, N. Z. (2016). Evasion strategies by politicians in news interviews. [Master’s thesis, Universiti Malaya]. Universiti Malaya’s Students’ Repository. http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/id/eprint/6812
  73. Haugh, M. (2016). “Just kidding”: Teasing and claims to non-serious intent. Journal of Pragmatics, 95, 120-136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.12.004
  74. Heritage, J. (2002). The limits of questioning: Negative interrogatives and hostile question content. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(10-11), 1427-1446. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00072-3
  75. Hyland, F., & Hyland, K. (2001). Sugaring the pill: Praise and criticism in written feedback. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(3), 185-212. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481311434763
  76. Hyland, K. (1994). Hedging in academic writing and EAF textbooks. English for Specific Purposes, 13(3), 239-256. https://doi.org/10.1016/0889-4906(94)90004-3
  77. Ilie, C. (2015). Parliamentary discourse. In K. Tracy (Ed.), The international encyclopedia of language and social interaction (pp. 1113-1127). Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118611463.wbielsi201
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  79. Jalilifar, A., & Alavi-Nia, M. (2012). We are surprised; wasn’t Iran disgraced there? A functional analysis of hedges and boosters in televised Iranian and American presidential debates. Discourse & Communication, 6(2), 135-161. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481311434763
  80. Kantara, A. (2012). Adversarial challenges and responses in Greek political interviews: A case study. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines, 5(2), 171-189.
  81. Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Sage Publications.
  82. Neuendorf, K. A. (2002). The content analysis guidebook. Sage Publications.
  83. Penyata Rasmi Parlimen Dewan Rakyat (Bil. 20 DR-13082018) [House of Representatives Parliamentary Hansards]. (2018a). Parlimen Malaysia. https://www.parlimen.gov.my/files/hindex/pdf/DR-13082018.pdf
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  87. Piirainen-Marsh, A. (2005). Managing adversarial questioning in broadcast interviews. Journal of Politeness Research, 1(2), 193-217. https://doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.2.193
  88. Rasiah, P. (2007). Evasion in Australia’s parliamentary question time: The case of the Iraq war. [Doctoral dissertation, University of Western Australia]. UWA Repository. https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/publications/evasion-in-australias-parliamentary-question-time-the-case-of-the
  89. Simon-Vandenbergen, A. M. (2008). “Those are only slogans”: A linguistic analysis of argumentation in debates with extremist political speakers. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 27(4), 345-358. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X08322476
  90. Uni, K. (2015). Utilising Arabic-origin loanwords in teaching Malay as a foreign language. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 23(3), 665-680.
  91. Wan Jan, W. S. (2020). Parti Islam Semalaysia (PAS): Unifier of the ummah? ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. https://doi.org/10.1355/9789814951265
  92. Yoke, S. K., & Hasan, N. H. (2014). Analogy as a tool for the acquisition of English verb tenses among low proficiency L2 learners. English Language Teaching, 7(4), 46-52. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v7n4p46
  93. Yoong, D. (2011). Orderly and disorderly practices of personal pronouns during Question Time in the Malaysian House of Representatives. Journal of Modern Languages, 21(1), 33-47.
  94. Zulli, D., & McKasy, M. (2020). Political equivocation in a less-adversarial campaign context. Communication Research Reports, 37(4), 202-211. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2020.1811659
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