The construction of discursive identities in the syncretic text “magazine cover”

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze, according to greimassian semiotics, the construction of discursive identities of the former president candidates Rousseff and Serra on the covers of VEJA and IstoÉ, two Brazilian weekly magazines. We understand discursive identity as the “end-image” which is dialogically constructed in texts, based on what is provided about the enunciator and the enunciatee. That means discursive identity comes from discourse and is a result of it. From the point of view of French semiotics, magazine covers are syncretic texts, which have a global enunciative effect as a result of the articulation of the languages on the expression plane. Given that magazine covers are the first device to manipulate readers, it is of interest to examine how plastic categories of the expression plane connect with categories of the content plane in such texts, in order to simulate the identities of both candidates. We assume that this articulation creates an image game which can reveal the enunciator’s choice of presenting the candidate as euphoric or dysphoric.