The Mongrel Complex and the Puerto Rico Solution
a discursive analysis of the mongrelism ideology in Brazilian hegemonic Media
Abstract
“Brazilians are backwards Narcissus, spitting in their own image” (RODRIGUES, 2013). With these words, Nelson Rodrigues characterizes the “Mongrel Complex”, identified as a voluntary stance of inferiority, based on a deprecating ideological conception of Brazil. Reaching back to the Recife-born author intuition, the objective of this article is to understand the ideology of mongrelism as it is constructed discursively in Brazilian hegemonic Media. In order to do so, based on the view of ideology advocated by Thompson (1995) as “the sense in service of power”, a theoretical framework is built having as its components Nelson Rodrigues’ reflection and the analytical toolkit of the Appraisal System (MARTIN; WHITE, 2005). The analyses developed give evidence to the functions performed by the evaluative elements in the discursive construction of the mongrelism, besides highlighting this ideology as a guiding line that cuts across the argumentation that advocated for the disgust and cowering of Brazil.
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References
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