Study of the discursive strategies of argumentation in situations of institutional violence in a pandemic

ABSTRACT

The objective of this work is to analyze the exchanges between the police and a family in a situation of police abuse during the Covid19 pandemic to study the effects of the discursive argumentation strategies used by the parties. The video that the mother uploads to Facebook will be analyzed within the framework of linguistic discourse analysis and interactional argumentation with a prag-matic, strategic and critical perspective (Carrizo 2019;Gumperz 1982;Labov 1972;Menéndez 2005;Wilson and Sperber 2004;van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2002). Preliminary results show the discursive consequences of the asymmetric power relationship typical of the interaction with the police, which leads the family to opt for a limit exit with risk to their physical and emotional integrity. The socio-sanitary emergency measures adopted in the pandemic accentuated the basic social discrimination for vulnerable sectors that require public medical care, especially in areas far from their place of residence. © 2022, Latinamerican Association of Discourse Studies. All rights reserved.