The construction of ethos in political discourse: a study about the presidential speech at the Ninth Summit of the Americas

Abstract

This research aims to describe and analyze the constitution of the ethos in Jair Bolsonaro's speech at the IX Summit of the Americas from the hypothesis that, once built to the audience of leaders of the American continents, it evidences a positive ethos of the proponent, refuting and reframing the negative stereotypes that circulate over it. The research, developed from the studies of Discourse Analysis, is based on the studies of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (2000), Amossy (2018) and Charaudeau (2018) and is a documentary research, with an empirical-inductive and descriptive approach, because we attribute meanings to linguistic-discursive phenomena. It was possible to show, from the analysis, that Bolsonaro invests in the construction of four main images: cooperative, competent, proud and religious and conservative. These images demonstrate their interest in strengthening Brazil’s relations with the countries participating in the Summit of the Americas, while reinforcing their political and ideological ideals. In this way, it is possible to perceive the game of masks that crosses the political discourse and makes the word more effective and persuasive according to the objectives of the speaker.