The Features of René Lévesque’s Political Discourse in the Context of the Struggle for Quebec Identity

Abstract

This article considers the political discourse of René Lévesque (1922–1987) in the context of his fight for Quebec identity. In our opinion, he was the most brilliant Quebec leader during the second half of the twentieth century. A selection of his public speeches and most notable interviews from the work La voix de René Lévesque (Québec 2002) were used as the source material for analysis. As a media and mass communication researcher, the author does not aspire solely to linguistic analysis. We consider René Lévesque’s political discourse in view of his ability to communicate with different audiences supporting Quebec identity. It was therefore vital to determine who these target audiences were and highlight the principal methods employed by Lévesque to influence them. The speeches of Lévesque the politician reflect his experience as a TV journalist (the habit of presenting information in spoken, rather than in written, form), and this is where some of its “coarseness” – the repetition of individual words and phrases, the use of interjections, the absence of stylistic excesses, etc. – comes from. One of the conclusions made is that all of Lévesque’s public speeches demonstrate, step by step, his consistent programme for preserving Quebec identity in its English environment (the change of self-designation into “Québécois (Quebecers)”; the proclamation of French as the only language of the province; the attempt to secure the support of France, its former metropole; referendum on province independence; declining the federal offer to sign “patriated” Canadian Constitution without recognizing Quebec as “a distinct society” and others). However, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, his federal opponent, considered René Lévesque an ambitious person, who wanted to split united Canada. Unfortunately, La voix de René Lévesque did not include the internal Parti Québécois discussions on the province’s independence, which were the reason he abandoned the Parti Québécois and his post of Prime Minister of Quebec. The author argues that political discourse of René Lévesque was a form of social action, which served as a prerequisite for recognizing the Parti Québécois Nation by the Parliament of Canada in 2006. Today, the Parti Québécois continues to successfully build on and develop René Lévesque’s political legacy, and the issue of Quebec’s independence is still on its agenda. The research shows that further research is needed on the political discourse of the leaders of small nations, people like René Lévesque. The context of the modern world gives us many other similar regional situations.Transl.: Ovcharenko E. F. 2022. The Features of René Lévesque’s Political Discourse in the Context of the Struggle for Quebec Identity. Linguistics & Polyglot Studies. 8(2). P. 112–125. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24833/2410-2423-2022-2-31-112-125