Parliaments in Focus: Language, Gender, and the Pandemic in Parliaments

This article contributes to the study of gendered aspects of parliamentary discourse by looking at the parliaments of Bulgaria, Poland, and Slovenia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Combining corpus linguistic and discourse-oriented approaches, the analysis looks into the interests of Members of Parliament (MPs) by establishing the key debating issues, topics, and social representations, following some recent claims on distinct contributions of female MPs in crisis time. Although some differences are observed, mainly pertaining to the topic of health, there is little trace to suggest that men and women discuss issues of health during the crisis in qualitatively different ways. However, when looking at gendered representations in general, the data show how gender carries a particular symbolic power that is leveraged in discussions about varied sociopolitical anxieties amplified during a crisis, be it regarding reproductive rights, immigration, or the social role of men.