Communicative failures of the political discourse of the spanish party Podemos

Abstract

The article considers the effectiveness of the Spanish party Podemos discourse from the standpoint of cognitive science and pragmalinguistics. It argues that inconsistency in the development of discourse as well as communicative failures tend to play a significant role in promoting or degrading political communication and, as a result, affect the dynamics of electoral support.

Given the thesis of linguo-pragmatists that the source of communicative failure can be both the communicant himself and the circumstances of the communicative act, the author carries out a discourse analysis of the rhetoric of the Podemos leaders in a chronological framework - 2014-2019, focusing not only on the evolution of pragmalinguistic practices, but also on the pragmatic context of communicative events.

Having ascertained the high media dependence of the Podemos discourse and its performative nature, it has been revealed that the repeated nature of “performative misfires” or communicative failures leads to disruption of the discourse sequence, a decrease in its effectiveness, and even erosion of the communicator’s discursive identity.

It seems that if the aggressive communication tactics of “media scandals” are likely to bring politicians popularity at the starting stage, then voters subsequently expect logic and consistency from their representatives, and the discontinuity and incomprehensible change of the discursive framework for the audience may lead to uncontrolled consequences for the addresser. It is recorded that the decline in Podemos’s electoral support in the general and municipal elections in Spain in 2019 may refer to large media scandals around the party’s activities, which have been triggered by violations of discursive logic.