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Defending Joy against the Popular Revolution : legitimation and delegitimation through songs

2013; Routledge; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17405904.2013.764614

1740-5912

Francesco Screti,

Linguistics and Discourse Analysis

Abstract 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. Keywords: political discoursepolitical songselectoral discoursepolitical discourse analysiselectoral discourse analysisapplied linguisticslegitimizingdelegitimizing Acknowledgement I thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions. Notes On the Spanish transition, see Colomer (1995 Colomer, J. 1995. Game theory and the transition to democracy: The Spanish model, Aldershot: Edward Elgar. [Google Scholar]). Adolfo Suárez resigned in 1981, and the president for the remainder of the legislature was Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo. At the time of writing, Mariano Rajoy, leader of the PP since 2004, is the country's president with an absolute parliamentary majority, after winning the 2011 general elections, which were brought forward 4 months (scheduled for March 2012). Manuel Fraga first founded the right-wing Alianza Popular party (Popular Alliance, AP) in 1982, as a coalition of different conservative parties originating in the Francoist regime; then, in 1989, he founded the PP, which absorbed the AP. On paternalism and patriarchalism, see, for instance, Kleinig (1983 Kleinig, J. 1983. Paternalism, Manchester: Manchester University Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 3–37). The main elements of the electoral campaign (traditional political rifts in Spain) were terrorism and the government's relationship with the Basque independence movement ETA (dialogue versus non-dialogue); the form of state (federal versus centralist); economic policies (tax decrease versus increase); relations with the Catholic Church (laicism versus clericalism), individual freedom regarding homosexual marriages and abortion (yes versus no); and education with the school subject of ‘Civic Education’ (yes versus no). In addition, the economic crisis of 2008 gave the PP a firmer foothold to continuously attack the PSOE. George Lakoff himself helped the PSOE to define this strategy, as an adviser during the 2008 electoral campaign (Bassets, 2008 Bassets, M. 2008, May 8. La campaña según Lakoff. La Vanguardia, : 4 [Google Scholar]). For instance, his personal web was called La mirada positiva (the positive view). See, for instance, the video No seas él (Do not be him), where a very pessimistic person is shown in a wide variety of situations, always wishing the worst to another person, while the final slogan invites (socialist?) receivers not to be like this (Popular?) character. See, for instance, research on music in far-right groups (Shekhovtsov, 2009 Shekhovtsov, A. 2009. Apoliteic music: Neo-Folk, martial industrial and ‘metapolitical fascism’. Patterns of Prejudice, 43/5: 431–457. (doi:10.1080/00313220903338990)[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 2011 Shekhovtsov, A. 2011. “Far-right music and the use of internet: Final conflict and the British national party compared”. In Far-Right.com: Nationalist extremism on the internet, Edited by: Jackson, P. and Gable, G. 35–46. Ilford: Searchlight. [Google Scholar], 2012 Shekhovtsov, A. 2012. “European far-right music and its enemies”. In Analyzing fascist discourse: European fascism in talk and text, Edited by: Wodak, R. and Richardson, J. E. London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]). The PSOE's anthem is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHJJCrLyeMo, while the PP's anthem is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7vYSfWExeo&feature=related. The song is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bQ9-rk1Thc. The song is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVhzYtBWHA. The song is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFZZlsYtrpQ. I decided to use this term to refer to the claims made by Wodak about this point, in order to distinguish it from what Wodak defines as a ‘fictionalization of politics’ and ‘politicization of fictions’, which refer to different phenomena. Anonymity (argumentum ad populum) was the PP's choice in response to the PSOE's choice for celebrity (argumentum ad verecundiam). In many videos, the PP preferred anonymous citizens to launch messages against the PSOE, while the PSOE used celebrities. Serrat was not liked by the Francoist regime, and also lived in exile for some time. Benedetti is an icon of democracy, because of his exile from Uruguay after the military coup d’état of 1973. Joan Campmany (agency DDB) is the advertiser responsible for the 2004 electoral campaign for the PSOE, won by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The PSOE's 2008 campaign was run by the agency Sra Rushmore. Although this is not explored here in detail, for reasons of space. Campmany (2005 Campmany, J. 2005. El efecto ZP. 1000 días de campaña para llegar a la Moncloa, Barcelona: Planeta. [Google Scholar]) is very clear about the PSOE's communicative strategy of indirectness in the 2004 electoral campaign. Note that Popular (capitalized) means ‘belonging to the Popular Party’, while popular means ‘belonging to the people’. The video is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bQ9-rk1Thc. Intolerance against sexual, racial, political, religious and cultural differences is presented as a feature of the PP, for instance, in reference to the theme of migrants or homosexuals. The same is valid for the word retrograde. It is understood in the sense of a loss of rights, defended by the PSOE. Actually, the fact that the celebrities participating in the video for DJ included a number of well-known homosexuals was meaningful, as it positioned the PSOE as defender of sexual difference in contrast to the PP. On 30 September 2005, the PP lodged an appeal in the Spanish Supreme Court against the law for homosexual marriages, which was promulgated by PSOE during Zapatero's first term in power, coming into effect on 3 July 2005. On the representation of social actors, see Van Leeuwen (1996 Van Leeuwen, T. 1996. “The representation of social actors”. In Texts and practices: Readings in critical discourse analysis, Edited by: Caldas-Coulthard, C. R. and Coulthard, M. 22–70. London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]). In the web page of Nuevas Generaciones, there was a reference to a meeting with Adolfo Suárez's son, with the slogan Los herederos legítimos de UCD [the legitimate heirs of the UCD], the party founded and led by Adolfo Suárez, who played a prominent role during the Spanish transition to democracy. For other examples of the ideological appropriation of linguistic signs, see Raiter (1999, p. 27), who shows the different ideological meanings of the word democracy in the discourses of two Argentinean Presidents, Perón and Alfonsín. Spanish is a pro drop language, so that the personal pronoun for they are not going to give it to us is dropped: (ellos) no nos lo van a regalar. On the other hand, note that the PP song uses the second person singular, addressing the receiver as an individual (tú) instead of as a group (vosotros). This personalized style could be seen as an attempt of avoiding the receiver the negative sensation of being a passive or unknown and interchangeable target of persuasive messages, and to preserve his/her individuality. This is what Fairclough (2001b Fairclough, N. 2001b. Language and power, 2, London: Longman. [Google Scholar]) calls ‘synthetic personalization’ (p. 52). The song is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVhzYtBWHA. Note that these two songs are probably the politest and most refined attacks the two parties directed at each other during the 2008 electoral campaign. In particular, the PP directly and aggressively attacked the PSOE (something that was not so evident in the PP song), while the PSOE delegitimized the opponent with indirect attacks, establishing itself as optimistic and the PP as pessimistic.