The Cycle of Identities within the Social Practice of Elections

Abstract

This article attempts to substantiate the view that through linguistic and social representations, discursive practices serve to establish or conceal relations of power and dominance between interactants, between national, ethnic, religious, sexual, political and cultural communities. The analysis of a front-page article in The Guardian (2000), emphasizes the way in which linguistic representations interpret self-images promoted by various political trends within the social practice of elections. Through discourses, social actors constitute objects of knowledge and social roles as well as identities and interpersonal relations between different social groups. A close look at the linguistic possibilities in action throughout the article reveals important meanings about what journalists generally understand of these actors. Moreover, certain ideologies and hegemonies are disclosed by the textual representations of the ‘actors' involved in social relationships.