Representaciones de la Guerra Civil en el diario El Paí­s: 1986, 1996, 2006

Abstract

Language is always evaluative, even when it adopts apparently objective or neutral ways. This basic presumption guided our comparative analysis of different articles that were published in El Paí­s newspaper in July of 1986, 1996 and 2006 (50th, 60th and 70th anniversaries of the start of Spanish Civil War). The intention was to examine what versions of the war are offered in each one and what discursive strategies were used. In other words, how a representation of this fundamental event of the history of Spain was constructed and what differences are found in their discursive treatment. The present work analyzes some discursive options that are significant in the construction of the referent: thematic and lexical selection, expressions that relate to the war and the particular grammar that exhibits or hides the participants of the action. The fact that the articles were published in the same newspaper in three symbolically relevant anniversaries enables us to assume that linguistic and, consequently, ideological differences that become evident in our comparison respond to changes in social representations that are specially transmitted by The Media. In this way the analysis may shed light on the transformations of the memory of the Spanish Civil War in the last twenty years.