O discurso económico alternativo galego: análise dun novo marco cognitivo

Abstract

Our purpose in this paper is an analysis of the discourse of some Galician activist groups which defend an alter­native economic model opposite to the model that pre­vails nowadays. This discourse takes place in a context of economic and political crisis, and tries to fulfil citizens’ demands to resolve the problems they are suffering. A new system that also requires a new ideological cons­truction, produced and transmitted through innovative discursive practices. This is the reason we approach the analysis from two theoretical perspectives: socio-cog­nitive and rhetorical-constructivist. We consider this varied theoretical framework, which begins with the reasons why there is a need to new ways of commu­nication in such situations of crisis and continues with references to more discursive issues. Among these, we emphasize language conception as a way of achieving power, in the line of Critical Discourse Analysis, and as a creator of alternative realities. In this sense, discourse is able to activate new cognitive frames, by using dis­cursive and rhetorical devices that configure certain conceptual schemes and function like arguments in the persuasive text. With this theoretical approach we show how these groups’ discourses construct an interpretive frame based on three points: social, environmental and local perspectives. From the argumentative point of view, this frame strongly opposes to the capitalist eco­nomical trying to involve citizens in new ways of life.