The Venezuelan Federation of Psychologists: A Political Discourse?

Abstract

From a critical perspective towards the discourse currently offered by psychology, and considering that one of the purposes of the branch of sociolinguistics known as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is to dismantle those dominant discourses through which the masses are manipulated, the objective of this research was to determine the political ideology present in the discourse of the Venezuelan Federation of Psychologists (FPV). Several factors had led to suppose that this institution maintains a matrix of opinion adverse to the government of President Nicolás Maduro. Five communiqués published by the FPV during the mandate of Maduro (2014-2016) were analyzed, using as guide the integrated model of discursive analysis formulated by Dimitriu (2002), which takes into account four levels of discourse: semantic, rhetoric, lexical and morphosyntactic. As expected, various discursive structures present in the communiqués revealed an ideological background against the government presided over by Nicolás Maduro. This finding is illustrative on how the political discourse can take part, and even come to dominate, in the agenda of an institution that is presented as an association of essentially gremial nature. It is recommended to analyze the disclosure of the communiqués examined in the media.