A memória da voz e a voz da memória: o jornal Voz da Unidade (1980-1991)

Abstract

Analyzes the process of image construction of the oldest political party in Brazil – the Partido Comunista Brasileiro (the Brazilian Communist Party) – through its discourse construction, especially the analysis of the weekly newspaper VOZ DA UNIDADE, which was its official voice between the years 1980 and 1991. The aim of this dissertation is to understand the PCB's discourse trajectory – considered to be the proletariat’s avant-garde – from the original headline of the VOZ (1980), when the Party publicized its political intentions under the title “What we intend”, until 1991 as the Partido Novo. Our universe of discourse is composed of the complete collection of the VOZ DA UNIDADE, with a total of 516 issues. However, it is important to point out that the two last issues, october and november 1991, came out with another title, Partido Novo, announcing changes to the old PCB and the crisis within the brazilian left. Taking the importance of the front page into consideration, our analysis was based on the first page of the first issue (1980), as well as on the first page of its last issues (1991); in other words, the beginning and the end of the VOZ DA UNIDADE. Our database is composed of a total of ten first pages, including the last two issues of the new voice of the PCB, the Partido Novo newspaper. In our analysis, we attempted to identify the way in which the Brazilian Communist Party expresses itself, constructing and reconstructing (after years of dictatorial government and repression of its voice) its image as a political subject and a representative of the working masses. The theoretical-methodological framework on which we base our analysis is French Discourse Analysis (AD). We also use Pêcheux and Orlandi's concepts of discourse and interdiscourse, and the concepts of voices and polyphony (Bakhtin). In the issues examined, our attention was drawn to the recurrence of the semantics of the new. As the PCB announces from the very first issue that it needs to change, insofar as it states it intends to fight for its rightful place within Brazilian society, throughout our analysis it is possible to identify the Party’s line of discourse construction on the pages of its official voice.