Doing disagreement in the House of Lords: ‘Talking around the issue’ as a context-appropriate argumentative strategy

Abstract

In this article I analyze talk in a political setting to demonstrate how disagreement-relevant practices are fitted to context to accomplish a kind of argumentative strategy. I propose that in the British Parliament’s House of Lords, interlocutors deal with dilemmas of disagreement by doing something I refer to as ‘talking around the issue’, a practice involving 1) institutional positioning , 2) display of emotionality, and 3) orientation to the issue . I suggest that these practices are indicative of institutional norms, but also comprise some of the argumentative resources available to interactants in everyday argumentative practice. These practices also reflect key areas of interest in disagreement and conflict research related to context, style, and issues in conflict.