“‘Emergency aid’”: the social function of the State and the contradictions in neoliberal discourse
Neoliberal discourse. State. Emergency aid.
Noting the spread of the new coronavirus globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international emergency. In view of this scenario, one of the strategies of the Brazilian State was to regulate (Decree No. 10,316, of 04/7/2020). With the aforementioned Decree, the Brazilian State regulated the “Emergency Aid”, affirming the importance of this aid for maintaining the needs of workers, especially workers affected by massive unemployment. This dissertation aims to contribute to the study of the contradictions in the neoliberal discourse on “Emergency Aid” and its meaning effects in different discursive formations. The corpora (COURTINE, 2009) was composed of discursive sequences (SD) extracted from Decrees about emergency aid. In order to analyze the circulation of meanings about the referential expression on screen, SD were formulated based on articles published in the media and on the website of a union representation that represents workers, the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT). The period considered for the selection of materials was April to September 2020, specifically the days after the publication of the aforementioned Decrees. The analysis has shown that, by responding in an emergency with the "Emergency Aid", the Brazilian State simulates that it is effectively contributing to facing the country's social inequalities, while its responsibility for unemployment, informality and the precarious living conditions of A large portion of the population is silenced, both in official discourse (SILVA, 2015), and in the media and trade union space.