Political and journalistic discourse regarding the Catalan declaration of independence

Abstract

As van Dijk argues, ideologies are social beliefs which are usually transmitted through discourse, and therefore journalistic and political texts are seen to be two trusted means of communication which are ideal for that function. Within the framework of the relation between language and ideology, my aim is to carry out a critical discourse analysis of various texts of this type. I shall begin by comparing the content of seven different newspapers published on 28 October 2017, the day after the Catalan Parliament’s unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). Four of these are national in scope (ABC, El País, El Mundo, and La Razón) and three are published in Catalonia (La Vanguardia, El Periódico de Catalunya, and Ara). I then focus my attention on the information expressed in two of these, namely ABC and La Vanguardia, with the aim of examining the different ways the same information is treated and the linguistic mechanisms used to downplay or enhance the same facts for different ideological purposes. In a similar vein, I go on to analyse the different discourse approaches adopted by the main political parties when dealing with the concept of the State in their respective manifestos for the 2019 general election.