Where should history set its eye? (In)visibility of youths in disciplinary discourses that recover the recent Chilean history (1970-1990)

Abstract

In this article I seek to establish possible modes of ideological representation built around the young people through disciplinary discourses which recover the recent Chilean history (1970-1990). In order to do this, I select two texts (Salazar and Pinto, 1999; Correa et al., 2001) which have the capacity to define and give sense to the participation of diverse historical agents as well as to establish ways for society to explains certain controversial events in which this agents are involved; 1973 coup d’état that finishes the government of President Salvador Allende, and the subsequent military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet are some examples. Such discourses are analyzed from a theoretical-methodological perspective that combines Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). I start from the idea that young people tend to have low visibility of the official history discourses because these ones privilege prominent characters, or, as well, generic or anonymous individuals, and do not recognize them as historical actors on their proper law. Therefore, I defend the idea that the marginalization, negation and concealment of these actors are recurring modes of ideological representation that, even though tend to their invisibility, constitute an aspect which is variable and also depends on linguistic, socio-cognitive and contextual specific factors.