diff -r 3424d65ad5ce Lib/test/test_codecs.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_codecs.py	Tue May 13 02:06:33 2014 +0200
+++ b/Lib/test/test_codecs.py	Wed May 14 11:28:39 2014 +0200
@@ -1596,6 +1596,12 @@ class CodecsModuleTest(unittest.TestCase
         self.assertEqual(codecs.decode(b'abc'), 'abc')
         self.assertRaises(UnicodeDecodeError, codecs.decode, b'\xff', 'ascii')
 
+        # test keywords
+        self.assertEqual(codecs.decode(obj=b'\xe4\xf6\xfc', encoding='latin-1'),
+                         '\xe4\xf6\xfc')
+        self.assertEqual(codecs.decode(b'[\xff]', 'ascii', errors='ignore'),
+                         '[]')
+
     def test_encode(self):
         self.assertEqual(codecs.encode('\xe4\xf6\xfc', 'latin-1'),
                          b'\xe4\xf6\xfc')
@@ -1604,6 +1610,12 @@ class CodecsModuleTest(unittest.TestCase
         self.assertEqual(codecs.encode('abc'), b'abc')
         self.assertRaises(UnicodeEncodeError, codecs.encode, '\xffff', 'ascii')
 
+        # test keywords
+        self.assertEqual(codecs.encode(obj='\xe4\xf6\xfc', encoding='latin-1'),
+                         b'\xe4\xf6\xfc')
+        self.assertEqual(codecs.encode('[\xff]', 'ascii', errors='ignore'),
+                         b'[]')
+
     def test_register(self):
         self.assertRaises(TypeError, codecs.register)
         self.assertRaises(TypeError, codecs.register, 42)
diff -r 3424d65ad5ce Modules/_codecsmodule.c
--- a/Modules/_codecsmodule.c	Tue May 13 02:06:33 2014 +0200
+++ b/Modules/_codecsmodule.c	Wed May 14 11:28:39 2014 +0200
@@ -89,13 +89,15 @@ a ValueError. Other possible values are 
 codecs.register_error that can handle ValueErrors.");
 
 static PyObject *
-codec_encode(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
+codec_encode(PyObject *self, PyObject *args, PyObject *kwargs)
 {
+    static char *kwlist[] = {"obj", "encoding", "errors", NULL};
     const char *encoding = NULL;
     const char *errors = NULL;
     PyObject *v;
 
-    if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "O|ss:encode", &v, &encoding, &errors))
+    if (!PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(args, kwargs, "O|ss:encode", kwlist,
+                                     &v, &encoding, &errors))
         return NULL;
 
     if (encoding == NULL)
@@ -116,13 +118,15 @@ as well as any other name registered wit
 able to handle ValueErrors.");
 
 static PyObject *
-codec_decode(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
+codec_decode(PyObject *self, PyObject *args, PyObject *kwargs)
 {
+    static char *kwlist[] = {"obj", "encoding", "errors", NULL};
     const char *encoding = NULL;
     const char *errors = NULL;
     PyObject *v;
 
-    if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "O|ss:decode", &v, &encoding, &errors))
+    if (!PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(args, kwargs, "O|ss:decode", kwlist,
+                                     &v, &encoding, &errors))
         return NULL;
 
     if (encoding == NULL)
@@ -1120,9 +1124,9 @@ static PyMethodDef _codecs_functions[] =
         register__doc__},
     {"lookup",                  codec_lookup,                   METH_VARARGS,
         lookup__doc__},
-    {"encode",                  codec_encode,                   METH_VARARGS,
+    {"encode",     (PyCFunction)codec_encode,     METH_VARARGS|METH_KEYWORDS,
         encode__doc__},
-    {"decode",                  codec_decode,                   METH_VARARGS,
+    {"decode",     (PyCFunction)codec_decode,     METH_VARARGS|METH_KEYWORDS,
         decode__doc__},
     {"escape_encode",           escape_encode,                  METH_VARARGS},
     {"escape_decode",           escape_decode,                  METH_VARARGS},