Construction and negotiation of voter-friendly identities in electoral debates

In this article we examine the identity construction of two politicians in the 2011 Spanish pre-electoral debate, following four of Bucholtz & Hall’s (2005) linguistic means: evaluation, implicatures, interactional negotiation, and complementary identity relations. For the analysis, Martin &...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Círculo de lingüística aplicada a la comunicación 2020-04, Vol.82, p.93-106
Main Authors: Díez-Prados, Mercedes, Cabrejas-Peñuelas, Ana Belén
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
appraisal
emergent identity
evaluation
identity inferences
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Summary:In this article we examine the identity construction of two politicians in the 2011 Spanish pre-electoral debate, following four of Bucholtz & Hall’s (2005) linguistic means: evaluation, implicatures, interactional negotiation, and complementary identity relations. For the analysis, Martin & White’s (2005) evaluation model and Corpus Linguistics are adopted. The Socialist candidate’s positive identity positions him as a defendant of laymen’s interests (i.e. Nurturant Parent identity), while he contributes to Rajoy’s emergent identity as a dishonest politician. However, the Conservative politician plays down the other candidate’s identity inferences, casts his identity as a Nurturant Parent to attract the audience’s sympathy and embodies an identity of change. This positive identity contributed to his ethos in the debate and resulted in an overwhelming win.
ISSN:1576-4737
1576-4737
DOI:10.5209/clac.68967