The Politics of Questioning

In spite of the many authoritative classifications of questions, theexamination of questions in different institutional contexts continues togenerate new and interesting insights into the nature of questions.Research shows that question forms and functions substantially differ ininstitutional contexts such as courtroom, classroom, medical andpolitical/parliamentary contexts. Using data from the UK PrimeMinister’s Questions and Ghanaian Minister’s Questions, this paperexplores UK and Ghanaian parliamentary questions. Based on thecontextual properties of parliamentary questions, the paper categorisesquestions into independent/direct yes/no interrogatives,independent/direct wh-interrogatives, independent/direct alternateinterrogatives, dependent/indirect wh-interrogatives and multipleinterrogatives. The Ghanaian data contain two additional question forms,namely, dependent/indirect yes/no interrogatives and dependent/indirectalternate interrogatives. The paper further indicates that the majordifference between UK and Ghanaian parliamentary questions is indirectyes/no interrogatives with mental process verbs. Again, using what I calltellex (tell, explain) yes/no questions, I submit that indirectness is a keyfeature of parliamentary questions, as it reflects the adversarial andideological nature of parliamentary discourse. I show that the tellexquestions are used as strategies and tactics for political point-scoring.