2018 BRAZIL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: THE FUNCTIONING OF THE SPOKESPERSON DISCURSIVE PLACE IN THE CAMPAIGN OF THREE CANDIDATES

Abstract

In this paper, we aim to analyze how are constituted the different subject positions held by three candidates in the 2018 Brazil presidential election, which are affiliated, to some extent, with the religious sphere, indicating which memories these positions bring back. We defend the hypothesis that the spokesperson discursive place works in this case and, therefore, we seek to identify, from the positions through which the said political subjects subdue themselves as candidates for the presidency, how this place is configured in their respective campaigns. To that end, we selected for analysis excerpts of the government plans and publications that these presidential candidates made on the social networks Twitter and Facebook during the election campaign period. After selecting and cataloging the data, we performed a discursive analysis of the materials, based on the theoretical framework of the French Discourse Analysis, mainly in the notions of subject position and spokesperson. The results indicate that, in the discursive event of the 2018 Brazil presidential election, the enunciative figure of the spokesperson, identified in the electoral campaign of the three candidates, despite speaking on behalf of a collectivity, does not represent the will of a unified and undivided Brazilian people. Because the way these candidates identify themselves with the spokesperson discursive place points to the drift of meanings, indicating that this supposed unity of the “Brazilian people” is only an effect related to the subjective illusion.