Sociological, Juridical and Linguistic Analysis of a Labor Reform Bill

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to analyze the paradigms and argumentative resources used in President Menem's message submitting the Labor Reform Bill to the Argentinian Congress. The message constitutes an expression of the political, social and economic program orienting Menem's government's action. An analysis was made of the personal/impersonal, indicative/subjunctive, affirmative/negative argumentative paradigms, in the light of the proposed notions of social context, communicative context and textual social context. This made it possible to observe the depersonalizing argumentative processes concerning both the speaker and the subjects of social action. The coincidence between the affirmative and possible argumentative paradigms in the social context discursive representation, and the persuasive function of the shifts in speech act type were also noticed. The prevailing argumentative resource employed by the speaker was the appeal to shared social values, followed by their alteration, not made explicit, in the legal regulation of specific situations. Both the textual definition of the subjects of the labor relationship and the proposal of a deep change in labor law were justified by means of this resource. This would be achieved to the detriment of rights previously acquired by the workers.