Sujeito, memória, contradições: uma análise discursiva dos pronunciamentos de Jair Bolsonaro no início da pandemia de covid-19

Abstract

This study analysed the official statements made by President Jair Messias Bolsonaro and broadcast on national radio and television in March and April 2020. These statements addressed the processes of meaning production in relation to the ongoing pandemic. Using the theoretical framework of French-oriented discourse analysis, we sought to identify discursive regularities, traces of discursive memory and contradictions in these statements. Additionally, we investigated the extent to which these discourses serve as a privileged 'place' for understanding how subjects organise themselves within power relations through discourse. The study draws on the work of authors Pêcheux (1988, 2008, 2014), Orlandi (1987, 1999, 2005), Mariani (1996, 1998, 2007), Daltoé (2024), Indursky (1999, 2011, 2020), and Petri and Venturini (2021), who support the idea that political discourse is permeated by divisions in meaning when considering the historical, ideological and social position of the speaker. Our analysis suggests that, as utterances inscribed in certain discursive formations, Bolsonaro's pronouncements present slips and fissures that are inherent to the functioning of language. This allows for the production of meanings that are not entirely controlled by the subject. As Pêcheux (1988) pointed out, 'there is no ritual without flaws'; even gestures of enunciation marked by authority and attempts at stabilisation produce contradiction, establishing the possibility of displacements, resistances and reinterpretations. Thus, the so-called 'flaws' designate the way in which discourse escapes the subject and creates spaces for the construction of new meanings. In this way, this thesis contributes to reflection on political discourse in times of crisis by addressing the dynamics of power and the discursive functions mobilised during the pandemic. These are traversed by contradictions, displacements and effects of meaning that sustain certain ideological positions.