Political discourse and media discourse: identity, legitimacy and power relations

• Grant number: 14/11663-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Effective date (Start): August 15, 2014
• Effective date (End): June 22, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Zilda Gaspar Oliveira de Aquino
• Grantee: Zilda Gaspar Oliveira de Aquino
• Host Investigator: Maria Aldina de Bessa Ferreira Rodrigues Marques
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Universidade do Minho (UMinho), Portugal

Abstract

This research aims at the discussion of matters related to identity and the legitimacy of discourse, so as to understand their construction, by means of the analysis of the political discourse of the President of Brazil and the discourse of the media responding to it. It is assumed that political discourse and media discourse coexist as representations of power, especiallyif the political discourse is produced by the President of the Republic, who holds the most important elective post in the country. The hypothesis is that the discussions regarding the construction of identity in the globalized world, as conceived by Hall (1996) and referred to by Bauman (2005) and Certeau (2007), could be applied to the Brazilian reality in a sui generis fashion, as speeches given in Brazil and abroad are considered. Besides that, along with the power relations therein embedded, the power relations that are present in the media discourse come into play. This research is descriptive and means to analyze the discourse in its linguistic-discursive, sociocognitive and argumentative dimensions, in order to reflect on the functioning of political and media discourses, taking into account the power relations, the interaction established between interlocutors and the strategies that corroborate the construction of identity and the legitimation of such discourses. The theoretical bases, so far as the discourse studies are considered, are Charaudeau (2008), Chilton (2004), Amossy (2008), Plantin (2005), among others. The corpora consist of speeches given by President DilmaRousseff since the beginning of her administration, in 2010, aimed at Brazil and other countries, at the United Nations Organization, and editorials published on the newspapers Folha de S.Paulo and Estado de S.Paulo in the same period. (AU)