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Question Time: Comparing and contrasting parliamentary questions in Britain, Italy and the EU
Palumbo, Giuseppe
2013
Abstract
Following the recent tradition of research on situations of language contact and,
in particular, on the reciprocal influences between languages in terms of textual
patterns and argumentative and rhetorical structures, the paper reports on the
analysis of a small corpus of parliamentary questions, observed in two different
settings, one national (Italy) and one supranational (the European Parliament).
More specifically, the analyzed corpus includes: 1) written questions by MPs in
the two Chambers of the Italian Parliament; 2) written questions in Italian by
Italian MEPs; 3) written questions tabled by British MEPs and translated into Italian.
The aim of the analysis was to identify the possible influence exerted by the
supranational context on the lexical and syntactic make-up of the texts produced
by Italian MEPs. The results show that, especially from the point of view of syntax
and discourse structure, questions by Italian MEPs are closer to the translated
questions than to the questions tabled in the Italian Parliament.
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Giuseppe Palumbo, 2Question Time: Comparing and contrasting parliamentary questions in Britain, Italy and the EU", in: Stefano Ondelli (a cura di), "Realizzazioni testuali ibride in contesto europeo. Lingue dell’UE e lingue nazionali a confronto", Trieste, EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2013, pp. 41-55.
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