Global Journal of Human Social Science, F: Political Science, Volume 23 Issue 6

The Discursive Construction of Republicanism through the Quotes of the President of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia after the 2017 Self-Determination Referendum. The Case of President Joaquim Torra I Pla Patrícia Domínguez Abstract- This paper addresses recourse to quotations as a polyp honic resource conveying a particular ideology. We argue that they serve to persuade audiences by eliciting an emotional response ( pathos ) that affects the transmission of ethos , both of the locutor (Maingueneau 2002b) and the community it claims to represent. By examining the quotes found on the President's official Twitter account and in his public speeches, we aim to identify the emotions that are semiotized by citations or "secondary aphorizations" (Maingueneau 2012). We later examine their intended persuasive impact on the target audience. In short, we conclude that "aphorizations" play a crucial role in the ideological construction of discourse in the political sphere. Keywords: aphorization, quotation, ideology, political opponent, opinion, represented discourse. I. I ntroduction his work is part of the doctoral thesis in linguistics written by the author at NOVA FCSH, Discourse and Ideology in the UN: Discursive Built-up and Textual Broadcast. It follows the approach of Text and Discourse linguistics proposed by the French line, namely Polyphony (Ducrot 1988), “enunciation scene” (2002a, 2007), and “aphorization” (2012) proposed by Maingueneau; textualization of Points of View (Rabatel 1998, 2007, 2012) and semiotization of emotions 1 (Rabatel & Micheli 2013a, 2013b). This paper aims to reflect on the use of quotations as a polyphonic phenomenon whose intertextual nature both constructs emotions and conveys ideologically shaped Points of View (hereafter POV) in a sample of political interventions of the President of the Generalitat de Catalunya 2 1 We understand emotions as the program of physical actions triggered by the mind - of an interpretative nature - in reaction to a stimulus, as defined by Damásio (1998). 2 Not to be confused with the sovereign institution of the Principality of Catalonia, founded in 1359. This Generalitat is part of the constitutional monarchy of the Spanish State, established in 1977. , Joaquim Torra i Pla, since his election on May 16, 2018, after the self-determination referendum won by the supporters of a Catalan Republic. The selected period includes 88 quotes in 16 political speeches (06.06.2018 / 04.01.2020) and 38 tweets posted on the social network Twitter (27.09.2019 / 27.02.2020) in Catalan. The proclamation of Torra resulted from the overthrow of the government of President Carles Puigdemont i Casamajó after the referendum of 01.10.2017. After the announcement of Catalonia's independence from the Spanish state, President Puigdemont adjourned it to initiate a negotiation phase. Nonetheless, the Kingdom of Spain intervened economically, politically, and legally in Catalonia on 28.11.2017, illegally calling elections in Catalonia. 3 II. M ethodology The President then won the 20.12.2017 elections government. However, the intervention of state judicial bodies prevented his proclamation and that of the two subsequent candidates, who were remanded in custody while Puigdemont was in exile in Belgium. The fourth candidate was Joaquim Torra i Pla, who began the legislature with the slogan "From restitution (of the legitimate government) to the Constitution (drafting the Charter of the Catalan Republic)." On 27.01.2020, the President was stripped of his seat in Parliament by court order, but he remained President, albeit without voting rights in the chamber. In this paper, we examine, from an enunciative perspective, how the locutor, as a speaking subject (Ducrot 1984), discursively constructs the “act of global enunciation” (Lundquist 1980, 1991) to convey a particular ideology. To this end, we will examine the embodiment of these acts, the texts. Our analysis will be conducted on a sample of texts in Catalan, including quotations, produced by a single locutor, President Joaquim Torra i Pla. The texts for the study consist of a series of 48 posts published on his official Twitter account between 09.27.2019 and 02.27.2020, as well as a collection of 13 political speeches delivered between 06.06.2018 and 04.01.2020. In total, the sample contains 88 quotes. For this study, we adopt the discourse concept developed by Volochinov 4 3 The President of the Catalan Parliament is the only person legally authorized to call elections for the Parliament in Catalonia. 4 In the words of Bronckart (2008:863), referring to Volochinov's interactionist approach: «Pour cet auteur, les phénomènes langagiers se présentent concrètement sous la forme d’énoncés et/ou de discours, qui constituent des révélateurs ou des matérialisations de la psychologie du corps social.» (1929-30 apud Bronckart T © 2023 Global Journals Volume XXIII Issue VI Version I 15 Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2023 ( ) F Author: Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. e-mail: a53859@campus.fcsh.unl.pt