Verbal and para-verbal communication in the German Bundestag and the British House of Commons (1949-1990)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas Mergel
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 415663028

The project aims at a performative history of parliamentary communication in the German Bundestag and the House of Commons, and it does so with digital methods. The research question deals with the structure of linguistic communication (modes of speaking, disruptions, dialogues, "political languages") as well as with non-verbal and para-verbal ways (spontaneous utterings, hecklings, applause, laughter, leaving the room). Thus the parliament shall be analyzed as a communication occurrence. With this approach follow the various suggestions of recent parliamentary history which, instead of taking up on the concept of a rationally arguing circle, rather focusses on the symbolic and performative moments of communication in parliament. The innovative approach of the project lies in its method: it employs a digital heuristics by analyzing written parliamentary minutes with a “big date” approach. Furthermore it explores audio-visual recordings in a more exemplary way (but also with digital tools, based on detailed transcriptions of audio-visual recordings) in order to carve out the integrated communication event which consists of mimic and gestic utterings as well. To analyze audio-visual sources with a big-data approach too (which is technically feasible, at least in principle), is not possible for now since the sources at hand are not prepared for digital analysis yet. The comparison allows not only to identify functions and forms of parliamentary communication as an expression of specific political cultures; it also serves as a method to look at the stability and changes of national political cultures, based on the assumption of a long-time convergence. Which forms of speech, of dialog, and of arguing dominated in both parliaments? Which non-verbal forms of disruption, support, and comment constituted the repertoire of communicating? How can we discover peculiarities and commonalities of these two political systems? In doing so, the project also aims at a comparative history of western-European democracy as a history of political communication in parliament.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants