Abstract
In parliamentary leadership communication, the Speaker’s discourse is decisive because it presents Parliament to the public and shapes how the legislature functions. However, notwithstanding the extensive research on parliamentary discourse, the discourse of the Speaker of Parliament appears to have attracted little scholarly investigation. Against this backdrop, we set out to explore the discursive strategies in some selected speeches of the Speaker of the 8th and the 9th Parliament of Ghana, Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin. We selected four speeches of the Speaker from Myjoy Online and did a qualitative content analysis to identify the discursive strategies and their discourse functions. The findings showed that the Speaker employed nomination, predication, argumentation, perspectivation and intensification for the achievement of his communicative intent. It was also found that the Speaker used nomination to direct attention to crucial topics while he employed predication to set expectations and build credibility. The study further found that he used argumentation and intensification as persuasive tools to assert his authority. It is expected that the findings will extend our knowledge of how the discourse of parliamentary leadership utilizes representations beyond grammatical level to convey recontextualized meaning to establish the nexus between power and ideology.