Leiden University Student Repository

Balder, Jan (2024)

Crossing the Line: The Causes and Effects of Linguistic Rudeness in Dutch Parliament

Bachelor thesis | Engelse taal en cultuur (BA)

This paper serves as an exploratory study into the causes and effects of rudeness in and on parliamentary discourse. The literature shows that populist speakers use distinct linguistic tactics, and that affective language, such as rudeness, can have polarising effects on speakers and audiences. This research hypothesises that populist speakers are primarily responsible for the increase of rudeness in parliamentary discourse, and that this has a negative effect on the compromising force of debate. This research was conducted by analysing three debates and identifying individual instances of rudeness. These instances were then tagged with their corresponding characteristics in statistical software. The data shows that rudeness is increasingly used in the Dutch Parliament, that it has a polarising effect, and that populist speakers are the most frequent producers of rudeness. The implications of this are that rudeness is a linguistic phenomenon that runs counter to well-functioning...Show moreThis paper serves as an exploratory study into the causes and effects of rudeness in and on parliamentary discourse. The literature shows that populist speakers use distinct linguistic tactics, and that affective language, such as rudeness, can have polarising effects on speakers and audiences. This research hypothesises that populist speakers are primarily responsible for the increase of rudeness in parliamentary discourse, and that this has a negative effect on the compromising force of debate. This research was conducted by analysing three debates and identifying individual instances of rudeness. These instances were then tagged with their corresponding characteristics in statistical software. The data shows that rudeness is increasingly used in the Dutch Parliament, that it has a polarising effect, and that populist speakers are the most frequent producers of rudeness. The implications of this are that rudeness is a linguistic phenomenon that runs counter to well-functioning democratic debate with a goal of compromise.Show less

Rudeness

Parliamentary discourse

Debate

Populism

Author

Balder, Jan

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Language Acquisition

Supervisors

Foster, A.A.

ECTS Credits

10

Language

en