Economic distress and discourse : the rise of a corporatist rhetoric in Northern Spain after World War I

Abstract

The paper explores the relationship between language and economy, between text and context, through a case study: the Basque region in northern Spain during World War I and the immediate postwar years. Using some tools of quantitative and qualitative analysis, I try to dissect the process of production and interpretation of the corporatist discourse, and then relate it to the evolution of the economy and the interests of the local economic elites. Contrary to the widespread Foucaldian theory, which focuses on the intrinsic structure of discourse, the results suggest that more attention should be paid to the context in explaining the process of discourse production.