Análisis de un discurso políticoLengua y cognición

Zusammenfassung

In order to understand how discourse in general, and political discourse in particular, works, it is necessary to follow a structural pattern that specifies the steps involved in its creation and interpretation. In this process of deconstruction, we end up understanding why a format, arguments, lexicon or syntactic construction is selected because it is intend-ed to guide through an intuitive cognitive process, not a reasoned one, in which cognitive economy, confirmation bias, the halo effect, etc., come into play, as well as to stimulate a specific behaviour that pursues an interpretation within a cognitive framework that allows a response in accordance with the interests of the sender. Thus, in political language, the selection of a series of transversal arguments (communism, terrorism, independence, etc.) together with the insertion of a negative lexicon that adheres to the Socialist Party, the gov-ernment and its president culminates a process of delegitimization that outweighs its own legitimisation. As we will show in this chapter, this discursive strategy, especially aggressive in the Popular Party, has been maintained for more than 20 years, thus demonstrating its enormous communicative effectiveness.