Colombian national anthem as the dialogicity continuum

Abstract

National anthems play a crucial role in expressing cultural identity and collective memory. Despite their significance, the study of anthems remains underexplored from cognitive, linguacultural, and discursive perspectives, particularly in the Latin American context. This study seeks to bridge this gap by undertaking a multi-modal interpretation of the Colombian national anthem, exploring its lexical and discursive elements while investigating how precedent phenomena reflect Colombian collective memory and its evolution. The study’s research questions are centred around exploring how lexical and grammatical resources, precedent phenomena, rhetorical devices, and dominant discursive elements interact within the Colombian national anthem to convey its thematic messages and reflect the evolution of Colombian collective memory. The research employs a comprehensive approach encompassing discourse analysis, stylistic analysis, linguistic-semiotic analysis, and linguacultural exploration. The method of linguacultural analysis, in particular, provides the foundation for understanding native speakers’ cognitive processes. Study results have revealed that the anthem’s discourse is characterised by contextual oppositions, metaphors, and allusions. Central concepts such as liberty, honour, devotion to the motherland, and independence form its core, while eloquent lexical choices enrich its persuasion. The results have also demonstrated that precedent phenomena of the Colombian national anthem are complex in their construction from a lexical, semantic, grammatical, rhetoric perspective and capitalise on different geographical, historical, national, regional, metaphorical, onomastic, and cultural symbols. The findings underscore the vital role of precedent phenomena in the Colombian national anthem’s composition, potentially extending to other national anthems. Integrating anthems into language courses can enhance linguistic and cultural competencies, while exploring precedent phenomena in teaching bolsters understanding of culture-specific discursive practices.

Keywords

• anthem
• precedent phenomena
• pluricentric language
• linguaculture
• cognitive linguistics
• identity
• collective memory
• colombia