Interdiscursivity, metaphor and polarization

how the homeless population is represented in Folha de S. Paulo editorials

Abstract

This article analyzes the discursive representation of the homeless population in Folha de S. Paulo editorials between 2011 and 2020, using Critical Discourse Studies (ECD) and metaphor analysis as theoretical support. Editorials are texts that characterize the position of a newspaper, especially in important moments and tensions for society, therefore, they are an important object of investigation. The corpus of this article, part of a broader research work, is composed of eight texts published over a decade. The analysis considers the following strategies and categories: ideological square (Van Dijk 2015, 2017), interdiscursivity (Fairclough 2001, 2003) and metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black, 2004). The analyzes indicate that the editorials build negative representations of the homeless population, favoring the forced displacement of the group, denying their rights and disseminating discourses that contribute to the exclusion and naturalization of social.