Discursive change

faircloughian analysis of the expression "PEC da gastança" used by the newspaper

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the process of discursive change around the PEC da Transição, which came to be characterized by media outlets, notably by Folha de São Paulo, as “PEC da gastança”, with the aim of identifying the ideological bias in the use of the expression. To achieve this objective, we used theoretical constructs of Critical Discourse Analysis, based on the following authors: Fairclough (2001), Wodak (2004), Resende and Ramalho (2006), Van Dijk (2015), Santiago et al. (2020) and Paiva (2019). For analysis, two newspaper texts were selected in which the expression “PEC da gastança” was used and thematized: an editorial, dated November 12, 2022, and a news text, published on December 16, 2022. The methodological procedures were based on Fairclough's three-dimensional approach (text, discursive practice and social practice), based on the study of vocabulary, discursive context and ideology categories, thus constituting an eminently explanatory research. The results of the work point to a positioning of the newspaper linked to the neoliberal ideology, whose discursive resources are related to the construction of a scenario in which the expression “PEC da gastança” was normalized, through the use of a vocabulary belonging to the negative semantic field, directed not only to the PEC, but also to President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, thus operationalizing the discursive change intended by the newspaper: from “PEC da Transição” para “PEC da gastança”.