Slogans versus hashtags in modern Spanish political discourse

In the study, the authors aim to identify significant linguistic, cognitive and pragmatic parameters of slogans and hashtags in the Spanish political discourse that determine the strength of their speech impact. This article fills a gap in empirical knowledge by presenting a systematic analysis of traditional and modern, digital, cognitive and linguistic instruments of the Spanish political discourse, taking into account the pragmatic context of the communicative situations and the information environment in which they are performed. The research materials are samples of slogans and hashtags used by leading Spanish parties (Spanish Socialist Workers Party, People’s Party, Ciudadanos, Vox, Podemos, United Left) during electoral campaigns, as well as in the course of political communication through the media, their official websites and social media accounts in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, real-time digital platforms that integrate the characteristics of social networks and blogs, and reflect a direct reaction to current social and political events. An interdisciplinary approach is applied by comprehensively combining comparative, pragmalinguistic, linguistic, cognitive, semantic, contextual and discourse analysis. For the first time, a hashtag is recorded as an independent verbal functional category of discourse, a unit of meaningful information that integrally conveys the formalized content in the digital field of discourse and has its own functionality in Internet communication, including political discourse. The discursive potential of traditional political slogans is revealed, which is performed through the function of consolidation - uniting as many voters as possible around the political movement via selfidentification with a certain idea or values. Cognitive and linguistic features of slogans in the Spanish political discourse are determined: simplified syntax, frequently used verb constructions, rhythm, empathy, neutral or exclusively positive metaphors, de-ideologization, actualization of high civic concepts subordinate to the discursive task of consolidating a civic audience around a certain social idea. The authors specify that Spanish political hashtags and hashtagged slogans in the Internet discourse have their own broader functionality and additionally perform, among others, the functions of hypertext by framing the cognitive field of political discussions and allowing navigation in the Internet, intertext by structuring textbuilding processes in network discourse, rubricator that simplifies the search for information and finally, serve as a means of segmenting and mobilizing the audience, identifying the addressees of the message, functioning as a new unit of discourse. The comprehensive analysis of the cognitive and pragmatic potential of slogans and hashtags in political discourse demonstrates their multidimensionality and multifunctionality as effective tools for shaping and structuring the agenda, political discussions and social trends in society by framing the discourse field, segmentation and mobilization of the electoral audience. Examining the new language material of the Internet communication, the authors have established that the active use of hashtags as a discursive unit in current Spanish political communication, as well as the functioning of political slogans in the traditional field of political rhetoric, are subordinated to the implementation of the main intentional task of politics - to conquer, exercise and maintain power in society. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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