New politics and the voice of the people. A study of populist language in Spanish political discourse: the case of Podemos

Abstract

The recent rise of new political parties in Spain has resulted in the quick transformation of both political discourse and campaign strategies in the media which target popular support through a reference to direct civil participation. This paper deals in particular with the political discourse used by Podemos. This is a grassroots party born out of popular discontent represented by the 15-M movement, (otherwise known as "the Spanish Revolution"), which achieved nation-wide political projection in record time, becoming an unexpected third force in Parliament after just three years of existence. Our aim is to detect and describe the party’s most outstanding discursive dynamics as construed in their last Congress (Vistalegre II), celebrated in March 2017. For such a purpose, we will compare its two most high-profile leaders, Pablo Iglesias and Íñigo Errejón, insofar as they represent the two main sensitivities of the organization (populism vs. social democracy). Thus, we will try to find their most significant differences at lexical, rhetorical and argumentative levels, considering the strategy and conceptual frames developed (Lakoff, 2004), rethorical resoures (Sánchez, 2012), argumentative fallacies (Weston, 2005) and nonverbal language (Ekman, 2009).