Occupying the streets, occupying words. Reframing new feminisms through reappropriation

Abstract

This paper presents a Critical and Socio-Cognitive analysis of protest discourse as created in slogans for feminist rallies taking place in Spain (2017–2020). The study focuses on the discursive evolution of the term manada (‘wolfpack’), from its origins as a metonymy to refer to a gang rape taking place in the San Fermín bullfighting celebration of July 2016, to its reappropriation by feminists to bring attention to gender violence and, most importantly, to create a positive in-group identity of cohesion and empowerment, while delegitimizing and dispossessing the out-group, rapists, of their power. The analysis shows how reappropriation, together with recontextualization and multimodal creativity, helps to understand the impact of a single term, manada, in the transformation of the traditional discourse of fear and threat into one of solidarity and hope when addressing gender violence, as well as its effects on the constructions of new cognitive and social frames within the community.

The potential of creative uses of metonymy for climate protest

“…Many were intended as resources for the first global climate strike in March 2019 and later for other organised climate strikes and political events, including Fridays for Future and the 2019 UK general election. Romano (2022) has claimed that protest slogans should be seen as a text-type in their own right, as one of the particularities of protest slogans in contrast to other forms of creative discourses used for activism (e.g. visual or performance art) is that they must also conform to the limitations of space provided by a placard or banner.…”

“…The language of protest banners and slogans is frequently highly creative, since it demonstrates a form of resistance to a specific power. Since creativity is key to transcending (socio-political) boundaries and is typical of discourses of resistance generally (Carter, 2004; Hidalgo-Downing, 2020; Romano, 2013, 2021, 2022), a framework for metonymy which incorporates creativity is needed. Littlemore’s (2022) taxonomy for creative uses of metonymy (developed from Littlemore and Tagg (2018)) is useful for analysing metonymy from functional and cognitive perspectives for several reasons.…”

“…Both irony and metonymy, then, can occur in discourses of resistance, facilitating strategies of recontextualization and reappropriation (Linell, 2009; Romano, 2022). The referential or indexing function of metonymy can, as this paper shows, facilitate the making of intertextual or cultural allusions, and invoke the discourses, ideologies or practices of the out-group.…”

“…These may imply mininarratives which can then be recontextualised and subverted in ironic commentary. As previous research suggests, similar strategies can be employed as a means of criticising and overcoming particular social and cognitive frames, generating space for ‘new one[s] of emancipation and social action’ (Romano, 2022: 634). As such, the critical functions of figurative language use can overlap with its social and cognitive functions.…”

From growth obsession to ecological promotion: The discursive construction of party image in Chinese political discourse on ecological civilization

“…Through analysis, it was found that reappropriation, in conjunction with recontextualization and multimodal creativity, enables comprehension of the influence that one term, manada, has had in the conversion of the conventional discourse of fear and danger to one of unity and aspiration when discussing gender violence. Furthermore, the effects of this transformation on the construction of fresh cognitive and social frameworks within the society were also explored (Romano, 2022). Davidović (2022) investigates how the media acts as a key mediating public structure to influence the reproduction of patriarchy.…”