Testimonies in the British and Spanish Parliaments: A contrastive study on domestic/gender violence

Political discourse is framed within the sphere of institutional (public) discourse. However, some references to speakers’ private lives in this context have been observed, showing that both spheres (public and private) operate effectively in political discourse, the latter functioning as a tool for persuasion and as an important source for authority. In this study, we will concentrate on the functional value of testimonies within the debates of two laws related to domestic/gender violence in the British and Spanish Parliaments during the summer of 2004. We wanted to analyse the role of the narration of personal experiences in a context in which moral issues are an inherent part of the main topic (domestic violence).