UM ESTUDO SEMÂNTICO-ENUNCIATIVO DOS TEXTOS-PRONUNCIAMENTOS DA 75ª E 76ª ASSEMBLEIA GERAL DA ONU
Enunciation; United Nations; Politics; Semantics.
This research is positioned within the field of “Linguistic Processes Studies”, specifically
under the research line “Study of Signification Processes, conducted as part of the
Postgraduate Program in Linguistics at the State University of Mato Grosso. The main
objective is to analyze the semantic-enunciative functioning of statements concerning
Brazilian issues in the text-pronouncements uttered by former President Bolsonaro at the
United Nations General Assemblies in 2020 and 2021, which were held virtually due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the discussion examines the political strategies used by
the former president, which were grounded in relations with religious leaders, biblical
references, and expressions that underscore these positions. To achieve this, we established
the following specific objectives: 1. To discuss and contextualize the creation of the UN and
Brazil’s accession to the organization; 2. To compare the issues addressed in the first and
second text-pronouncements; 3. To analyze the enunciative meanings of “Christophobia” in
these text-pronouncements, considering the political strategies based on religious affiliations
and biblical references; and 4. To investigate the modes of meaning production in the
articulation and rewriting of integrated statements within the texts-pronouncements. The
corpus or analytical material of this study consists of two texts-pronouncements said by
Bolsonaro at the United Nations opening ceremony, and collected from the Agência Brasil
and Gov.br websites. To conduct the analyses, we adopted a procedure embased by
Guimarães (2018) called “preliminary exploration”, a strategy used to select statements that
contribute to the mobilization of semantic-enunciative categories and the necessary concepts
for the analyses. It was chosen due to the significant impact of these speeches in the media,
given the Head of State’s stance on the pandemic and wildfires in the country; secondly,
because these texts/speeches are constructed from languages that are structured, articulated,
and intercomplementary. So, this investigation seeks to establish institutional and political
relations with the audience, whether they listen, watch, or read; and finally, due to the
widespread impact of this on Brazilian society. The analysis procedure is conducted using
Enunciative Semantics, as developed by Guimarães (2018), which focuses on understanding
how language functions.