Reframing History through Discourse: A French Discourse Analysis of Vox’s Political Language
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article investigates the epistemological convergence between French historiography and French Discourse Analysis (FDA), emphasizing their shared focus on language as a vehicle for historical meaning and ideological formation. Tracing the evolution from the Annales School to post-structuralist thinkers such as Foucault and LaCapra, the study highlights how history has increasingly embraced discourse as both a methodological tool and an object of analysis. Through a case study of Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right party Vox, the article illustrates how FDA concepts – such as lexical worlds, interdiscursivity, and discursive ethos – can be applied to political rhetoric in the digital age. Using lexicometric methods (IraMuTeQ, SketchEngine) and qualitative interpretation, the study analyzes a corpus of Abascal’s tweets (2019-2022), focusing particularly on the term golpista as a strategic signifier of ideological antagonism. The findings show how far-right discourse reactivates historically loaded terms to construct binary oppositions and mobilize collective memory. Ultimately, the article argues that FDA offers historians a powerful framework to interrogate the linguistic production of identity, power, and historical continuity in contemporary political narratives.
Author: Nicola Riccardi
Institution: University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4415914546
FWCI:
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: