About the Discourse of the Necessity of Military Intervention in Brazil for the Restoration of Order in the Country: Analytical Notes

Abstract

In this work, based on the analysis of the French orientation discourse, we aim to reflect on a discourse that is becoming increasingly common in Brazil: the request for the Armed Forces to take control of the country by force. Although a recent past full of suffering, death and torture stamped the pages of the history books when telling about the Military Coup of 1964, research indicates the support of more than 40 percent of the population for a supposed military intervention in Brazil in 2018. In a quick survey of major newspapers in the country and in social networks, we noted that often some statements are associated with the demand for seizure of power, such as: We are going to sanitize the country, establish order, in the name of God and the family, Brazil will be a serious country. Such relations between this semantic universe makes us question whether there is a discursive order that governs and sustains this need for military intervention in Brazil. Therefore, we will use a theoretical-discursive approach based on the concepts of Alice Krieg-Planque (2016), Dominique Maingueneau (2014) and Marie-Anne Paveau (2015), more specifically of small phrases and discursive virtue, respectively. The latter guides us in the sense of answering a question that the author herself asks: Will there be good statements in the moral sense of the term? If so, what then is a statement capable of receiving a judgment of moral value? And how does moral value manifest itself linguistically? (p. 24). This is because, for her, this notion functions at the core of an ethics of values and supposes an intersubjective negotiation within a given group or given society (p. 26). For the constitution of our corpus, will be analyzed especially statements published in newspapers and magazines of great circulation in the country.