ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines and discusses the following major issues related to parliamentary debates: parliamentary deliberation practices, parliamentary discourse genre and its subgenres, parliamentary addressees and parliamentary audiences, parliamentary participant roles, key research topics on parliamentary debates, and final remarks. Many of the recent and current research studies on parliamentary debates point to a number of partly common and partly specific challenges that are facing parliaments in the post-modern world. As parliamentary debates are assuming an increasingly decisive role in reshaping political confrontation practices and in articulating the most topical social, economic and political issues on national and international agendas, further empirical research is necessary. Furthermore, in order to identify and better understand the common, as well as the distinctive features of parliamentary practices in national parliaments, more cross-cultural studies need to be carried out. The primary goals of parliamentary debates are to negotiate political solutions, to reach agreements and to make decisions, the results of which affect people's everyday lives.
