Political discourses at the beginning of the Catalan conflict: marks and strategies of the protagonists

Abstract

The article addresses the role of the key political actors at the start of the recent Catalan conflict, Rajoy (President of Spain) and Mas (President of Catalonia). Based on a typology of marks of conflict and strategies for the production of ideological discourse, six discourses of both actors are analyzed in relation to important events. The marks present in Mas's speeches are the political, the symbolic, and the normative. In those of Rajoy, the pragmatic and the normative. Contextual factors influence the variation of the actors' marks and strategies. The marks used by both parties feed their positions and dampen the adversary's arguments. Rajoy's pragmatic arguments contrast with the elements of the secessionist symbolic mark. And the arguments of constitutional legality conflict with those that affirm the democratic legitimacy of separatism.

political discourse; marks of conflict; discursive strategies; Catalonia; Spain