Search

Based on a critical discursive perspective, this work analyses the ideology around the languages spoken in Italy, namely Italian and contested languages such as Lombard, Neapolitan or Sicilian, which are commonly referred to as ‘dialects’. The aim is to study how journalists construct, spread and justify a monolingual ideology that favours central nationalism (or macronationalism). Seventy-one articles have been examined, which were published online by the major Italian newspaper la Repubblica (www.repubblica.it) in 2011, the year of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. The analysis shows that journalists contribute to Italian macronationalism mainly through three discursive strategies: references to plurality, language hierarchisation, and suffering erasure. In the first strategy, contested languages are negatively framed as many, unintelligible and divisive. In the second, a categorisation such as ‘language/dialect’ is used which legitimises Italian and delegitimises contested languages by negating their very languageness. In the third strategy, narratives on the unification process are used that erase the suffering brought about by the eradication of contested languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the MoVimento 5 Stelle (M5S) in Italy and Podemos in Spain thematise the role of the State. We draw from a qualitative analysis of speeches of party leaders and party manifestoes in recent national elections. We argue that Podemos and the M5S coincide in reasserting the principle of popular sovereignty to overcome the present “post-democratic” condition and the distance between citizens and the State. However, they differ in their understanding of the State’s intervention on the economy and society. Podemos proposes a new interventionist state reminiscent of post-war social democracy. M5S has a more liberal view, conceiving of the State as a neutral arbiter of the free market. Furthermore, the two parties have different conceptions of the relationship between the State and the Nation. While adopting a patriotic discourse, Podemos has catered for demands of local autonomy, framing Spain as a “nation of nations” and has been adamant in defending migrants and refugees. The M5S has instead proposed a more nationalist discourse, as seen in tirades by party leaders against migrants and refugees. These divergences reflect the different positioning of these formations along the Left/Right axis and how this results in a more inclusive/exclusive view of the State. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper I critically analyze the work of Shepard Fairey, the street artist better known as OBEY, as a multimodal discourse. After introducing the notion of street art, I analyze Fairey’s aesthetics, inspired in Pop Art and Soviet Constructivism, as well as his accounts on his own art, in order to unveil his ideology. I then discuss a particular case, concerning the pastiche of the Che Guevara’s image. I will show that the seemingly subversive nature of OBEY’s work, is nothing more than marketing. Consequently, by industrially (re)producing and commodifiying dissent, OBEY banalizes and deactivates it. According to the dichotomy between oppositional and emergent discourses, I conclude that OBEY enacts only an oppositional behavior. Moreover, by ‘manufacturing propaganda dissent’, OBEY performs protest, but in doing so he contributes to perpetuating the system he says he fights against. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note deals with the so-called “political ,” i.e. the use of instead of the or prescribed by standard orthography in the Spanish linguistic landscape. This feature can be linked to the “politics of protest,” indexing writers' anarchist stance or membership in radical, left-wing groups. In 2011, the Spanish bank Bankia used in the tagline of one of its advertisements:hazte bankero(“become a banker”). This re-semiotization of by Bankia has turned urban public spaces into a site of conflict and contestation. On the one hand, the bank trivialized a small but powerful symbol of political, grassroots dissent. On the other hand, it triggered resistance from groups traditionally associated with the use of , namely the 15M Movement (Movimiento 15MorM15M), who renounced to use it in its protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I will analyze, as an example of political discourse, the songs used by Spain's two main political parties in the 2008 general elections. Just like other texts used in political electoral discourse (such as speeches, interviews, meetings, posters, advertisements or videos), these songs form a part of a public and ideological discourse aimed at the election of a candidate. The whole of the candidate's discourse is aimed at convincing the electorate that she/he and his/her party are the best choice (legitimation), while the opposing candidate is the worst (delegitimation). In this paper, I will analyze how this strategy, quite typical in political ideological electoral discourse, is put into practice in the two songs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]