Thematic Choice as a Discursive Formation Used to Create Socio-Political Dominance in Kenyan parliamentary Debates between 1992 and 2010

Abstract

Speech that is made up of a group of statements that belong to the same discursive formation is referred to as knowledge. Participants in such a discourse manipulate it to achieve their desired goals. A conversational construction is made up of a number of statements that have conditions of existence. Thematic choice is a discursive formation that addresses the topic of discussion. It is linked to coercion. Whereas language is generally intended to be communicative, it has, sometimes done more than that due to manipulations. This paper examines thematic choice as a discursive formation that was used by Kenyan parliamentarians during debates to create socio-political dominance. The objective was: To identify and explain how discursive formations are presented in language used by Kenyan parliamentarians to create socio-political dominance. Various sources of literature have been reviewed in the following areas: ideology, parliamentary proceedings and political dominance, the power in language and discursive formations, and the theoretical framework. The study used descriptive research design. By using purposive sampling, the data was collected from the Hansard dating from 1992 to 2010.Data was analysed using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA),a theory about how text is constructed. The study identified how thematic choice in each of the utterances was used to create socio-political dominance. The research found out that thematic choice, had impact on the language that parliamentarians used.