Abstract

AMARAL, Virgílio  and  PEREIRA, Susana. Caso República e a retórica nos discursos políticos: Um estudo descritivo. Aná. Psicológica [online]. 2014, vol.32, n.1, pp.105-126. ISSN 0870-8231.  https://doi.org/10.14417/ap.768.

The goal of this study is to understand, through discursive practices conveyed by the official media of two political groups - the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista) and the Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Português) - the way in which these two political parties have constructed the significance of a critical incident which opposed them - the conflict in the “República” newspaper - in the revolutionary context of the post-25 April, 1974. Based on the idea of a “post-modern proposal” of rhetorical analysis of discourse (Billig, 1991, 2012), as well as on the proposals of Critical Analysis of Discourse of Van Dijk (2006), specially the argumentative dichotomy used by the opposing political forces, we reconstruct the ideological polarities used by the two parties and also interpret the moments in which the political discourses are conveyed as majority vs. minority and this way we present an analysis of such discourses based on Billig’s assumption (1991, 2012) that the defense of a certain position can only be understood as opposition (explicit or implicitly) to a contrary position. In the socialist discourse the case “República” is constructed as a rhetorical argument against the “totalitarianism” of PCP’s action, promoting a mobilization which, in a context of electoral legitimacy (Elections for the Constituent Assembly that had just been won by the Socialist Party), convokes Portuguese people to fight for freedom of speech, through the rhetorical generalization of the incident. In the communist discourse, the rhetoric of the conspiracy argument (“alliance” of the Socialist Party and the forces opposed to the revolutionary process) associated with the bipolarization of reality surrounding the case (Reaction vs. Revolution) serves the purpose of legitimating the revolutionary action of the Party in the post-25 April environment (namely having in mind the “People-MFAAlliance”, recurrently evoked). The analysis of the discourses, having also in attention the rhetorical mechanisms identified by Potter (1996) and Castro (2002) allows the reconstruction of the significance of the conflict beneath the argumentation presented by the political parties in dispute. The main issues at stake are the ideological differences and positions about the future conduct of the country, around two legitimacies: revolutionary vs. electoral.

Keywords : 25 April 1974; Discourse analysis; Rhetoric; Politics.

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