Signum: Estudos da Linguagem (Dec 2016)
DISCOURSE, REFERENCIATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF POLITICAL IDENTITY: THE CASE OF OCCUPY WALL STREET
Abstract
This article aims to undertake an analysis of identity construction of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS), North American movement that opposed the financial policy of capitalism and, consequently, the strong influence of the capital of the State. Thus, we aim to answer the question of how does the discursive construction of identity of this object of discourse, from the referential strategies mobilized in the text of the Statement of Autonomy, document approved by the General Assembly of movement. Our theoretical and methodological support consists of a link between the theory of discourse, the political scientist Ernesto Laclau (1990, 2011; LACLAU; MOUFFE, 2001) – especially his remarks about the relationship between discourse, antagonism and construction of political identities through an equivalence of logic –, and studies of referentiation from the perspective of authors such as Apothéloz e Reichler-Béguelin (1995), Koch (2005, 2015), Marcuschi (2007) e Ciulla e Silva (2008). Using as textual analysis category anaphoric expressions – without neglecting other elements, like some deictics, that interfere in the construction process of the discourse object in question – we attention to the fact that this construction sets the OWS as what Laclau calls empty significant whose identity is carved through the formation and expansion of a chain of equivalence, which is established from an antagonistic relationship. Finally, we discuss some issues concerning this identity construction mode in order to face the language not only as a way of materialization of social tensions but as the privileged place of social struggles brought about by these tensions.
