(Re)tratos discursivos do brasil no discurso político: uma análise discursiva do pronunciamento do presidente lula no evento “O Brasil dando a volta por cima”

Abstract

This research analyzes the speech of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the event "O Brasil dando a volta por cima" (April 3, 2025), with the aim of understanding how the speaker discursively constructs the image of Brazil before and during his administration and what effects of meaning emerge from this process. The theoretical methodological approach used is French-style Discourse Analysis (DA), especially based on the contributions of Pêcheux (2013), Foucault (2008), Orlandi (2007), Maingueneau (2015), Machado (2014), among others. O corpus consiste em recortes do discurso presidencial contextualizados pelo cenário político de desgaste da imagem governamental. The corpus consists of parts from the presidential speech contextualized by the political scenario of the government's hurt image. The analyzes demonstrate that the speaker organizes the discourse around two main representations: the Brazil "of the past" and the Brazil "of today". The "before" is described as a "house in ruins," a "scorched earth," metaphors that produce effects of destruction and regression attributed to the previous administration. This discursive movement operates to delegitimize the preceding government and constructs a negative past that functions as justification for current actions. The "during" is represented as a space of reconstruction and resumption, marked by metaphors of work and cultivation — "plowing the land," "rebuild foundations," "reap results." Here, an ethos of a restorative leader is produced, associated with values such as democracy, sovereignty, development, and social inclusion. The use of affectionate vocatives ("my friends") and the contrast between "us" and "them" reinforce both the closeness to the people and the intention to hold the previous government accountable. As all discursive truth is nothing more than a will to truth, a narrative that reflects the subject's worldview and is created to convince and persuade the listener, it concludes that the pronouncement functions as an instrument of symbolic dispute and persuasion, articulating strategies of self-legitimization and construction of a narrative of national reconstruction. The study highlights the potential of DA to understand how political discourses produce meaningful, build identities and influence social perceptions.