The Critical Discourse Analysis in the economic and social context arising from covid-19 in Brazil

Abstract

It was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan city, China, an infectious disease known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and named by the World Health Organization (WHO) as covid-19. Since then, several actions have been taken by heads of state from around the world in order to contain the spread of the disease that plagues all continents. As a result of the lack of consensus on the measures to be adopted in the face of the current world crisis, the social inequalities that already existed have been exacerbated, focusing on discourses, previously stifled, on the situation of public health, social inequality, and the Brazilian economy. Such speeches have often been linked in the media through cartoons, criticizing the postures of different administrative spheres in the face of the current world crisis scenario resulting from the pandemic of the new coronavirus. The cartoon textual genre presents a critical and ideological view on the theme, providing a deep reflection, explored in the present study by the bias of Critical Discourse Analysis (ACD) according to Teun Van Dijk, through the social representations that influence the interpretation and construction of the senses, opening the critical view of social problems, through the production of the discourse of power, domination, and social inequality.