TITLE:
Discrediting Opponents as a Communicative Goal of Impoliteness in Parliamentary Discourse
AUTHORS:
Rose Wambugu, Nancy Mbaka, Christine Atieno
KEYWORDS:
Impeachment, Impoliteness Strategies, Parliamentary Discourse, Communicative Goals, Discreditting Opponents
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.12 No.10,
October
20,
2025
ABSTRACT: This study sought to investigate the use of impoliteness strategies by senators to discredit opponents during the impeachment motion of the Second Deputy President of Kenya in the Senate. The proceedings of the impeachment motion of the Deputy President were used for analysis. The data for the analysis were sourced from The Hansard Kenya, where twenty-one utterances with impolite remarks made by senators were purposively sampled for examination. The utterances were sampled from the proceedings of Wednesday afternoon of 16th October 2024 and Thursday morning and afternoon sessions of 17th October, 2024. The researcher identified the impoliteness strategies based on [1] theory of impoliteness. The data was analysed qualitatively. A Guiding card facilitated the data analysis procedure. The researcher conducted a content analysis of the impoliteness strategies sampled in order to determine the purpose for which they were applied by the senators during the impeachment trials of the second Deputy President of Kenya. Findings indicated that senators used bald-on-record, negative, positive and withholding impoliteness to discredit the various opponents for example the Deputy President by portraying him as corrupt, tribal and unfit for office or the witnesses as malicious without well founded evidence to support the removal of the Deputy President. This was in order to influence the outcome of the debate. This study contributes to the field of pragmatics and sociolinguistics by revealing how impoliteness, as a communicative tool, interacts with Kenya’s multi-ethnic and multi-party context to reinforce divisions, a common concern across these fields in understanding language’s social impact. Through qualitative content analysis of Hansard excerpts, the study also underscores the universal function of discourse in constructing political narratives and influencing institutional outcomes in democratic settings.