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The following paper analyses the speech that Esperanza Aguirre pronounced on June 13, 2015 in the Madrid City Council. This speech is very relevant because it anticipates the arguments that the Partido Popular will use in other elections. The goals are to understand Aguirre's narration about the latest municipal elections of Madrid and study her arguments. To this end, I have followed the works of Perelman, van Dijk and Lakoff, among others, in order to achieve an appropiate theoretical framework. Finally, the analysis shows how Aguirre presents herself as the legitimate winner of the elections and how Manuela Carmena is discredited for that position because of her relationship with Podemos, who don't accept the 1978 consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In line with the Dialogical Approach to Argumentation and Polyphony, in this paper, I focus on the quotative evidential points of view expressed through metadiscursive negation in a corpus of political speeches given by various Argentine politicians. My goal is twofold. On one hand, I try to show that, in these cases, the negative enunciation is presented as triggered by discourse frames related to previous or potential speeches, i.e., by argumentative chains presented as the origin of the enunciation. On the other, I aim to prove that in a dialogical reply to those discourse frames, on which enunciation is based, a certain positioning of the speaker is built, together with a certain ethos (Ducrot 1984; Amossy 1999). Considering different scenographies (Maingueneau 1999) in political enunciation, which are adjusted according to the different addressees, I make a distinction between the confrontation, pedagogical, humbleness, self-defense (concerned with preserving one's image and equality) and closeness ethos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the Spanish discourse marker por cierto is analyzed. Although por cierto has been classified in the previous literature as a digressor, discourse markers that accompany and mark what we intuitively perceive as a digression, very few has been said so far about these particles. In this paper I offer an explanation of the concept of digression that makes it possible to describe the functions of the Spanish discourse marker por cierto, differentiating its use as a digressor from other uses. The analysis is based on the notions of rupture with the previous discourse --explained using the Theory of Information Structure in Discourse by Roberts (1996), relation with the previous discourse fragment and informative significance, defined in terms of argumentative orientation and force, and salience in discourse. Providing a definition of a digression independent of the use of por cierto allows us to distinguish the central value of this digressor from its uses introducing a new topic and marking the high informative significance of a discourse fragment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the use of irony as a persuasive resource in two interviews, given by Rafael Correa (president of Ecuador) and the spokesperson of the PAH (The Platform of People affected by Mortgages), Ada Colau (currently mayor of Barcelona), in 2012 and 2013 respectively. Both interviews refer to the subject of the evictions in Spain. For the analysis of this trope from a systemic perspective, we have based ourselves on the constructivist proposal of Hayden White, a philosopher of history, who analyzes this trope (together with metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche, following the humanist Vico's tradition) in relationship with the plot of a historical work and the ideology which is being constructed. White's dialectic relationship established between the historical meaning of a book and the author's discursive resources selected to convey this meaning is an example of an extremely useful analytical proposal for the analysis of ideological discourses. Specifically, White's proposal helps us to interrelate dialectically irony (a kind of macro-function) with the various linguistic and discursive forms used in the text (narratives, free direct speech, lexical opposites, etc.), and the context within which these discourses take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to study the discursive polemic regarding the proposed new schema of agro-export taxes that took place in Argentina during the first half of the year 2008. In this context, the presence of ideological signs (Voloshinov, 1976 [1926]), that are the focus of discursive struggles for the imposition of different accentuations, becomes an important indicator of the construction of the discursive polemic. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the circulation of the signs campo and distribución, in particular, with the objective of determining their role in the struggle to establish discursive iniciative (Raiter et al., 1999) within said polemic. To that end, we analyze and contrast, in public speeches of the argentinean President, on the one hand, and of leaders of the agrarian organizations oposed to the new tax, on the other, the acentuations that these two signs acquire. In the first place, we consider the lexical-semantic relations at play (Dubois, 1962), as well as the role of these signs in the configuration of different topics (Van Dijk, 1978) that organize these discourses' local meanings. Furthermore, in order to specify the various ways in which these topics are constructed, we also take into account the components of political discourse defined by Verón (1984), as well as the presence of forms of manifest heterogeneity (Authier-Revuz, 1984) in the discursive and interdiscursive linkage of topics. The analysis reveals the complexity of one of the possible nodes of this polemic: the role of the State in the generation of economic growth and the equitable distribution of its effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a set of narratives on critical episodes by people affected by migraine. The voice of patients has acquired higher relevance in recent years, after being long postponed in the field of medicine. Linguistic research on patients' discourse can contribute to the knowledge on and understanding of this disorder, and even to its diagnosis, as shown among others by the researches on cardiac and convulsive illnesses carried out by German and British teams (Gülich and Schöndienstt, 1999; Schwabe et al., 2008; Schwabe et al., 2007). In this article I present, from the perspective of conceptual metaphor theory and of discursive production theory, an analysis of a corpus of patient narratives in which people explain their migraine attacks: I am interested in expanding the knowledge on how these patients conceptualize and transmit their illness and its main symptom, i.e. headache. The analysis of patients' contributions focuses both on the qualitative aspects of pain and on the description of its intensity, which is particularly rich as regards expressive procedures and resources and leads, occasionally, to the thematization of feelings of fear and panic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grammar studies have focused lately on speech instead of on written language, being the latter the most traditional approach. This situation confronts us with the necessity of a new definition for some grammar concepts. This paper proposes a new definition for the concept of sentence so that it can be used for spoken Spanish analysis. Already existing definitions are evaluated and discarded because they do not fit with many normal speech structures. Besides, they usually are confusing regarding syntactic, prosodic and pragmatic features. We propose a new definition only based on grammar and semantic features. Conclusions show that this approach allows the syntactic analysis of speech in a much more accurate way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teleshopping spots represent a paradigmatic example of argumentative and perlocutionary discourse. In them, the creative adopts different strategies in order that the target feels irresistibly attracted by the object he advertises. In this paper we analyze all the elements that, because of their individual discoursive nature, but especially due to their mutual interaction, convert an apparently informative speech into an efficient tool of seduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the analysis of the speech by a member of parliament well known for his qualities as an orator in the first turn in a debate on labour reform, this paper analyses the survival of classical rhetoric in present-day political communication. The following aspects are taken into account: the bases of the argumentation structure, a wide concept of discursive context, and the strategies modelling the process of oralisation undergone by texts previously written. As for the execution (actio, according to the classics), verbal and paraverbal oral aspects are studied, such as voice quality, accent, intonation and delimitating procedures, as well as kinetic non-verbal aspects, such as face expression and the function of gesture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I examine the function and the use of un poco and of its morphological alterations (un poquito, un poquitín, etc.) in different levels: in speech acts, in propositions, in speech, in social relationship established between speaker and hearer, and, finally, in context. Theoretical framework of the analysis is, primarily, modality, a notion applying to utterances and indicating the compromise level which the speaker maintains in respect of the utterance faithful. Secondly, I refer to mitigation within the most general theory of Politeness, in which this is a strategy to modulate speech act effects (Lakoff, 1972; Caffi, 1999, 2002, 2007). Here I examine the function of un poco from a semantic-pragmatic perspective also taking into account discourse's dimensión and the situations in which they occur. To study the phenomenon, I use real conversations' data proceeding by the Corpus de Conversaciones Coloquiales Val.Es.Co and by the Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual CREA, to which I add some fragments proceeding by conversations that I recorded and transcribed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on attenuation has experienced a huge development in the last decades, particularly from some disciplines related to oral discourse, such as Pragmatics or Discourse Analysis. Nevertheless, its sociolinguistic variation has been hardly studied. This article aims to deep on the incidence that social parameters (age and sex) have on Spanish attenuating mechanisms and their discourse functions. The paper presents the quantitative results and findings obtained from 24 semi-controlled interviews taken from PRESEEA corpus, recorded both in Madrid and Valencia, amongst high sociocultural level speakers. This research is embedded in a specific project of PRESEEA Research Group (Proyecto para el Estudio Sociolingüístico del Español de España y América). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral speech, whose nonverbal aspects have been discussed in Oralia before, is seen here in the realms of both the theater and the cinema. This requires that we broaden the concept of translation in order to include the possible interlinguistic and intercultural translation we face in a stage production and in the production and projection of a film. This implies, beyond our reading of a literary translation of oral speech, the "total experience", as spectators, of speech on the stage or on the screen (possibly an adaptation of an original literary text). Both theater and cinema are vehicles for the "translation" or "conversion" of written speech -showing its words, but not always its nonverbal elements- in visual images and, since the advent of sound cinema, auditive images as well, which in a movie often implies a never satisfactory dubbing with frequent incongruencies between the different elements of speech: acoustic (verbal and paralinguistic) and visual (kinesic), let alone some rather incredible lexical flaws. This paper, then, discuses: paralanguage from the original text to the stage or screen, the rather hopeless hidden challenge of descriptions translated for the performance, and, in the cinema, the blind spectators' experience and their "listening act"; the change in our perception of kinesics between silent cinema and sound films; and what is really meant by "naturalness" and "theatricality" in the speech during a performance, that is, the balance or imbalance between its interactive components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper covers key aspects about the appearance which a discursive battle takes on in a political-electoral debate. More specifically, it centres on the role of linguistic (dis) courtesy within dialectic manoeuvres such as disagreement and criticism or interruption, as well as analysing other related phenomena. Thus, the principles of linguistic courtesy constitute the theoretical pivot around which this analysis revolves, duly linked to the analytical tools which the analysis of conversation offers. The author once again takes up some of the main contributions to this topic from one of his previous studies (Fernández García, 2000:105-191), elaborating, refining and expanding on them in the light of new material: whereas in the previous study only data from the election campaign of 1996 were used, in this present one we will find the addition of other data, firstly from the debates in 1993 between Felipe González and José María Aznar, and secondly, from those of 2008 between José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze, as an example of oral political discourse, the songs of two main Spanish politics parties, during the general 2008 elections. As other texts of political discourse (such as speech, interviews, meetings, posters, advertisings, etc.), these songs that accompanied the electoral propaganda are part of a public and ideological discourse aimed at the election of a candidate (perlocutive object). The elector voting for the candidate must believe that he is the best option available. Thus, the candidate's discourse is directed so the elector knows that the candidate and his party are the best options (legitimation), while it presents the opposing candidate as the worst one (delegitimation). The results of the analysis show that these strategies, quite typical in political discourse, have some new elements such as their resemblance to commercial advertising, i.e. the testimonials by famous people. Even if the political songs are a traditional genre with conventional communicative aims (propaganda and persuasion), they display some typical features in contemporary and postmodern communication: colloquiality, informality, "carnivalization", syncretism and hibridation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the arguments put forward by Mariano Rajoy, the leader of the Partido Popular (currently Spain's major opposition party and the principal representative of the country's right wing), in response to questions about the atmosphere of tension posed by a group of citizens during Tengo una pregunta para usted (2007), a television programme in which 100 representatives from a cross section of society quiz leading politicians on a wide range of issues. The theoretical-methodological approach is based on concepts taken from discourse analysis and a cognitive perspective, as well as from rhetoric, argumentation theory and pragmadialectics. This interdisciplinary approach enables us to better address the complexity of the various levels of discursive significance and their interrelation with ideological meaning in discourse whose persuasive intentionality targets agreement between the speaker and recipients. The analysis and interpretation of the data reveals Rajoy's general lack of attention to the citizen's point of view and his tendency to break the frameworks they activate, repeatedly replacing them with his own. This indicates his interest in presenting his political programme before the television audience, rather than offering each citizen a coherent (and well-structured within a critical argument) response. In establishing his ideological position, he frequently resorts to the use of supposedly objective data (extrinsic proof), as well as the use of argumentative places, and especially the overuse of the place of essence (which for Rajoy has an overriding argumentative value). From a pragmatic perspective, he breaks the expectations generated by the speech acts used by the citizens in their questions, thereby failing to answer what he has been asked. In addition, he fails to comply with several rules by misinterpreting the citizen's intention and digressing inappropriately. Where he does accept die approach put forward, he tends to minimise die possible threat the act represents to his party's image by using a range of attenuating elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we develop an analysis of the political discourse of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK), President of Argentina. We choose a series of discourses that were enunciated between the 25.3.08 and 17.7.08 during a conflict that faces the government and rural proprietors. It is our main concern for several years to define the specificity of the political discourse. We differentiate, for that reason, here, political discourse out of political public discourse. We set out our theoretical assumptions: social representations, dominant discourse and Agenda. For the analyses we used the notion of conjuncture and we looked where the syntax is made more complex to begin the analyses. Finally we display a criterion of corpus selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although its very name indicates its presumed insignificance and marginalization from the sociolinguistic enterprise, 'small talk' has recently begun to receive increased attention as an object of interest to sociolinguistics (cf. Coupland, 2000). This paper draws on work on small talk in varieties of Spanish (e.g. Márquez Reiter y Placencia, 2004; Placencia, 2004, 2005; Márquez Reiter, 2006) as well as work on television news discourse (cf. Clayman y Heritage, 2002) in order to investigate the functions of small talk in U.S. Spanish television newscasts. The analysis attempts to uncover the social functions of small talk used among broadcasters. The news anchors' stance and identity construction through small talk is explored, as is the construction of institutional identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper concerns the mechanisms and resources by means of which consensus is sought and established in multi-party conversation. The data used for analysis is a 66-second long episode taken from an event in which four students constituting a study group get together for task-solving purposes (the event is part of the GRUPES corpus, project FONDECYT/CHILE 1060566). Two strands belonging to two different planes of linguistic-discursive analysis were considered: argumentation structure and management, on the one hand (discursive-pragmatic plane), and intersubjectivity management, on the other (interactional plane). The results show that these two types of management are simultaneous and partly interwoven but clearly distinct and separable. Most important is the finding that no consensus can arise among participants unless an acceptance move (discursive- pragmatic plane) is supported by the signalling of maximally confirmed intersubjectivity (interactional plane). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the use of interjections in relation to the concept of (im)politeness as a function designed to establish a social image both for the speaker and interlocutor. The activities will more or less be carried out according to their discursive needs. This study focuses on television debate. The corpus of the research consists of recordings of different programs which more or less follow a debate structure. The interjection is a resource that guarantees the maximum efficiency of strategies of (im)politeness. It shows the speaker's attitude and intention and expresses them not as objects of speech, but as origin of the speech itself. Thus, it contributes to the discourse with great efficiency as much in a negative as in a positive sense. In this work, I try to prove that the interjection is used as an affiliation activity process in a few contexts and autonomy activity in others, or even both simultaneously, depending on filters of (im)politeness such as the topic, time slot, participants, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]